SEA AND BAY 

\ CHARLES WHARTON STORK 




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Copyright}!^. 



o 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



SEA AND BAY 



SEA AND BAY 

A POEM OF NEW ENGLAND 



BY 

CHARLES WHARTON STORK 

author of 
"day dreams of Greece" 

AND 
"IHE QXJEEN OF ORPLEDE" 



NEW YORK 
JOHN LANE COMPANY 

MCMXVI 






Copyright, 1916, 
By John Lane Company 




J. J. Little & Ives Company 
New York. U- S. A. 



APR 13 1916 



)GI.A427670 



TO 

PAUL DOUGHERTY 

PAINTER OF THE SEA 



Contents 

PAGE 

Part I. Bay ii 

Part II. Sea 63 

Part III. Bay and Sea 125 



PART I 
BAY 



Bay Song 

Trustful, dimpling, blue-eyed bay, 
Glad at rest and glad at play, 
Like a babe beneath the eye 
Of thy virgin-mother sky. 
Whose bright ecstasy of love 
Makes thee smile to her above, 
Scarce a shadow horn of earth 
Dims thy soul of heavenly birth. 

Little winds thy curls caress. 
And sometimes for wantonness 
Thou dost lightly pout and frown. 
Tossing fretful up and down. 
Till it might seem thy tender form 
Felt forebodings of the storm. 
But soon thy fears are put to rout 
And winsome laughter dances out. 

Careless we beside thee born 
Share the sparkle of the morn. 
II 



SEA AND BAY 

Soon away to regions far 
We must follow each his star. 
Yet, the day of tempest done, 
Sailing back at set of sun, 
We may hope once more to he 
Happy, trustful, calm, like thee. 



My father died before I recollect. 
The thing I first recall was how at dawn 
The pigeons would be cooing in the eaves; 
So that, when Mother told me solemnly 
Of Father's death and how he had gone 

away 
Up high, I thought of where the pigeons 

cooed 
And fluttered — that was my idea of 

heaven. 
Our family name was Carr, well thought 

of there; 
Our house was in a pine grove near the 

shore. 
Some distance up the bay above the town, 
Plain as a box, but cosy and neat within, — 

12 



BAY 

All but the parlor, chill with musty gloom, 
Where gay stuffed birds and foreign shells 

kept state. 
Three children we were in all; my sister 

Jane, 
Alden (that's my name), and my brother 

Phil, 
Born after Father's death as I know now. 
Mother did well by us, as the saying is, 
Though more by stress of conscience than 

of love; 
Managed the old farm, never let us want. 
And taught us all at home till school-time 

came. 

How clearly the scene stands out: the 

whitewashed walls 
With map and blackboard, cut by windows 

high 
And staring; in the midst the teacher's 

face. 
Kind but remote because of spectacles. 
Little she was — though very large to 

me — 

13 



SEA AND BAY 

Her voice high-pitched and chirping Hke 

a bird's; 
Her small bright eyes were bird-like too. 

She spoke 
With Mother first, then turned to me and 

said, 
"I hope you'll like it here." I hoped so 

too. 
Next I turned round to look at all the 

rest — 
Some watching me, some busy at their 

slates. 
Some whispering. Sister Jane was one 

of them, 
I couldn't tell just where in such a crowd. 
But soon the teacher led me to my seat 
And gave me a slate with easy sums to 

do.— 
Few days come back like one's first day at 

school ! 

Lessons went smoothly, but the other 
boys 
Were rough and teased me; if Jane took 
my part 

14 



BAY 

It only made things worse, until I learned 
That boys — like men — must fight their 

way alone. 
I made no friends ; as soon as school was 

done 
I used to trudge off gravely by myself 
To lord it in the kingdom of my choice; 
A pebbly beach, walled in on every side 
By scarred gray chffs that shut the world 

of school 
And farm completely out, yet left me free 
To share the gladness of the romping 

waves, 
And steep my being in the soft warm air. 
Such happiness there was mine, I truly 

think. 
As few if any of my schoolmates found 
In livelier, noisier games. When I be- 
gan 
To read I somehow took to naval fights. 
Which filled my mind and colored all my 

play 
With patriotic zeal. From that time 

forth 

15 



SEA AND BAY 

I dreamed a world of men outside my 

own. 
Instead of merely throwing stones I now 
Repelled invasions of the British fleet, 
Sinking glass-bottle frigates by the 

score, — 
The bay was sea for me in miniature. 

You may imagine that the cares of life 
Broke in upon me often: chores to do. 
Letters to carry, cows and pigs to feed. 
So that for days I hardly saw my beach. 
Yet all that lives in me of those early 

years 
Is Mother's face, Jane's calm approving 

smile. 
And the remembrance of my beach: the 

cliffs. 
The wild sweet-peas, the round wet peb- 
bles even. 
Surely my life between, however marred. 
Was better for those memories of the 

beach. 
The bay, so silken smooth, so mildly 
bright 

i6 



BAY 

It seemed the very mirror of repose, 
Lent me tranquillity, the pure white clouds 
Touched the divine in me with high de- 
sire. 
The flowers and pebbles pleased my home- 
lier moods, 
And taught a childlike love of little things. 
In some such way I grew till I was twelve. 

On my next birthday, as the weather 
was fair. 
The month July, my Uncle Alden came 
To take me for a picnic to the sea. 
I was his favorite, being named for him, 
And had the benefit of his kindest 

thoughts 
And longest yarns ; for he was a travelled 

man, 
A merchant captain in his time, and now, 
Though long retired, he held in high con- 
tempt 
The manners of his neighbors by the bay. 
That morning he wheeled up before the 
door, 

17 



SEA AND BAY 

Cried "All aboard!" gave me a steady 

hand, 
And helped me to a seat. Who then so 

proud 
As I to hold the reins and flick the 

whip? 
While we were spinning down the sandy 

road, 
He spoke as one inspired: "And so, young 

chap. 
You've never seen the ocean. Well, that 

beats 
The very blazes! Lived to twelve year 

old 
Within RvG miles. Call that a life, do ye 

then? 
Seen it between the capes, ye say? No 

doubt. 
Looking at heaven through a window- 
chink ! 
I wonder what ye'll make of it to-day 
With the warm sunlight striking on the 

rocks 
And a sou'wester beating up the surf." 
i8 



BAY 

We climbed a burly headland, coming 

out 
By a lighthouse, and I looked; but what 

I saw 
I had no words to tell, nor have I now. 
For when those Atlas arms of swimming 

blue 
Reached out as if to bring heaven down 

to me, 
I knew myself akin to that wide scene 
By the great throb with which I leaped to 

it there 
And caught it to my spirit. What I felt 
I can but hint by some vague reference 
To other feelings known in later life. 
I've met with lovely women, two or three, 
Who open vistas to the wondering soul 
Of spirit realms unguessed, with whom it 

seems 
That earth and heaven have no fast-set 

bound. 
But flow together as imperceptibly 
As blue to blue on the horizon's verge, 
Where ships float up to meet the bending 
sky. 

19 



SEA AND BAY 

It wasn't long before I had earned a 
boat 

By extra work In the hayfields. I could 
now 

Fish and explore the bay to heart's con- 
tent. 

I might have taken Phil along, but he 

Would rather learn to do things on the 
farm 

Than wait for bites or play at make-be- 
lieve. 

For me, though, fishing was romance, a 
world 

Half apprehended in those magic depths 

As in enchanted woods. No water-sprite, 

Undine or Triton could have seemed 
more strange 

Than those wild beings that bit and 
tugged and splashed 

Until they were safely landed in the 
boat, — 

Only the frying-pan could prove them 
fish. 

I leaned above the line, Intent as one 
20 



BAY 

Who takes a message from another world 
Sent In a code of pulls. I could but guess 
Their meaning: one said "Walt!" another 

"Jerk!" 
Some of the fish were clever, some were 

dull, 
Each had his character: the bluefish fierce 
Pulling from side to side with frantic 

strength ; 
The cunning flounder swimming with the 

line. 
Till at the boat's side standing on his tail 
He threw the hook and vanished, white 

side up. 
Many were beautiful: the round scup- 

paug. 
Their sides aglint with iridescent hues, 
Which shone like big new dollars in the 

rays 
Of sunset, when they always bite the best ; 
The blackfish stout, of blunt aggressive 

build. 
Black, grey or yellow with stripes. — ^You 

wonder why 
So many artists love to paint dead fish. 

21 



SEA AND BAY 

But painted fish don't smell, and kindly 

note 
The firm rich color and the subtle sheen 
On every scale ! — Well, well, I've skipped 

a bit 
From those young days of fishing to a 

time 
When I saw famous pictures, but you see 
The threads of life get tangled now and 

then. 

But whether I fished or drifted with 

the tide 
I was at one with Nature. Oft at noon 
Of some bright, listless day I let my gaze 
Dream down into the depths of emerald 
Beneath, or with a slanting look beheld 
The waveless wide expanse, till soul and 

sense 
Would blend Into the mid-day light which 

dwelt 
Caressingly on all. Thus not so much 
Did Nature's beauty come to me, as I 
Went out to Nature. 

22 



BAY 

I was taught of God 
In a cold, gloomy building, but His love — 
What I could learn of it — was revealed 

to me 
In the warm air beneath the tender sky; 
Things I had heard in church would then 

'-evive, 
As Nature gave them breath and life and 

truth. 
I liked to hear that Jesus taught men so 
Beside the lake or on the mountain side 
In haunts of daily life where flowers and 

trees 
Offered themselves for parables, in fields 
Or by the village well. How easily then 
In dull folk's hearts might spring the 

seed of faith 
Or flow the living water! 

Kindlier thoughts 
Drew me at length to leave my hermit 

ways 
And mingle with my fellows. First of all 
A girl named Hilda won my bashful trust 
By a bold act of sympathy. The boys, 
23 



SEA AND BAY 

For reasons known to them, had picked 

me out 
To be their target in a snowball game. 
One well-directed volley knocked me down 
With bleeding nose and lips. The marks- 
men brave, 
Scared when they found I lay there partly 

stunned. 
Were standing sheepishly aloof. Just 

then 
Hilda came up and saw us. Like a flash 
She ran between, and turning on the boys : 
"You great big cowards, all of you on 

oner 
Shamed even the roughest. Wiping off 

the blood 
With that incipient mother-gentleness 
Which girls fall heir to in their early 

teens, 
She sent the leader of the bullying crew 
For water, — this I heard as though from 

far. 
A moistened handkerchief on brow and 

cheek 
Revived me, Hilda helped me to sit up, 
24 



BAY 

And making sure no serious harm was 

done, 
Soon got me to my feet and so to school. 
Few women leave a generous deed half 

done, 
And Hilda was a woman from the first. 
Finding I was an outlaw from the rest. 
She tried to learn the cause, asked of my 

life 
And told me of her own. How joyfully 
My heart, so long unsunned by fellow- 
ship, 
Melted, to tears at first, and then to speech 
Of all my lonely fancies, lofty hopes 
And boy ambitions ! 

From that winter morn 
Hilda and I were friends. I took her 

down 
To see my beach and told her wondrous 

tales 
Of wild adventures ; — not that she took in 
Half my odd notions, but she looked at 

me 
With such grave interest that I rambled 

on 

25 



SEA AND BAY 

Complacently enough. In course of time 
Her quiet Influence wrought upon me so 
That I no longer found myself shut out 
From common schoolboy games. I took 

my place 
On ball-team, coasting party, husking 

bee, — 
Whatever sport the season might suggest. 
I still was laughed at, but my ofiish ways 
Received more tolerance. Therc^ were 

rumors, too, 
That I was "something extra" at my 

books. 
Mother tried hard to fix me to the farm, 
Showed how to run It, scolded, begged 

and cried. 
Or strove to rouse a rivalry with Phil, 
Already my superior; nothing worked. 
I did as I was told, went bhndly on 
Till I could hardly stagger, but no spark 
Of love for what I did Inspired my toil. 
The fields were clods, the cattle stupid 

beasts; 
They roused my Imagination to no life 
26 



BAY 

As they did Phil's. But set me at my 

books, — 
My history, Latin, mathematics even — 
And straight my mind awoke. The very 

figures 
Were things I loved to wrestle with ; they 

seemed 
Somehow more real than pigs or ricks of 

hay. 
If Mother argued, I could never explain 
Why I should feel so. Uncle Alden 

laughed 
When Mother told him. "I was right, 

you'll see," 
He used to say. Once the head master 

called. 
To talk of me, I knew. The upshot was 
That I was given two more years of 

school 
Beyond what most had; Uncle paid for it. 
Then I was happy, did my farming chores 
With zeal to earn my schooling honestly. 
And showed a cheerful visage to the 

world. 

27 



SEA AND BAY 

The world accordingly smiled back at me 
And life went smoothly. 

Somewhere near fifteen 
The romance of my beach began to 

fade, 
My reading changed from fights to poetry 
And sentimental tales, my peace of mind 
Gave way to restless languor. It was 

long 
Before I learned the cause, though In the 

end 
It struck me like a blow. One night that 

year 
I went with Hilda, as the custom was. 
To a birthday party at a village house. 
There, after hide-and-seek and blind- 
man's-buff. 
They called for Copenhagen (klss-in-the- 

ring) . 
The game being new to me, I joined the 

rest 
And watched, but when one struggling girl 

was kissed. 
Then others, many of them nothing loath, 
A cruel wormwood feeling of disgust 
28 



BAY 

Rose in my throat, a disillusionment 
That now may well seem comic: This 

was love, 
The knightly passion for a peerless maid 
Of which the novels told ! I thanked my 

stars 
That Hilda had escaped the general 

fate. 
One bold-cheeked hoyden caught me with 

the ring 
And stood an instant, but I stared and 

blushed 
Till with a mocking laugh she slipped 

away. 
And yet while walking home I felt again 
That I had played the fool and missed my 

chance. 
Later, on moonlight picnics when I found 
A couple kissing, I would steal away 
With lonely hard sensations in my heart, 
Because their happiness was not for me. 
There was a song we often used to sing 
On straw-rides or around a driftwood 

fire 
That used to vex me. This is how it went : 
29 



SEA AND BAY 

The Husking Bee 

Ridin* home from the huskin' bee 

^Neath the full moon's tender light, 
My sweetheart Sally was a-settin' by me 

An' her eyes they was big and bright. 
Then I thought to myself: Vd like to know 

If my arm stole around her waist, 
Whether she'd cuddle close an' look up so, 

An' her lips I then would taste. 

Chorus 
We was jog gin' along, jog gin' along, 

Jog gin' along by the moon's pale light; 
Joggin' along, singin' a song, 

Comin' home from the huskin' bee. 

Pretty soon my hand it crept around, 

An' Sally looked up so shy. 
An' two pair o' lips each other found, — 

Oh, zvhat a happy man was I! 
Then I says to her, ^'Sal, I felt so scared 

That you'd scream, or say me nay." 
But she answered, '7 %vas waitin' to see if 
you dared. 

For a girl must be won that way." 
30 



BAY 

Chorus 

We was jog gin' along, jog gin' along, 
Joggin along by the moon's soft light; 

While our two hearts sang love's own 
song, 
Comin' home from the huskin' bee. 

Now if you should be placed as I was then, 

Just listen to my advice, 
The girls they take to the forward men 

If they only act polite an' nice. 
Perhaps you will think that the maid is 
coy 

An' be afraid to begin. 
While she's just a-thinkin' : This noodle- 
head boy 

Hain't got enough spunk to win. 

Chorus 
So when you're — 

Joggin' along, joggin' along, 

Joggin' along by the moon's soft light, 
Joggin' along, remember my song 

As you coine from the huskin' bee. 
31 



SEA AND BAY 

I couldn't ever be a ^'forward man'' 
Or boy, despite the moral of the piece. 
I followed Hilda with a spaniel love 
Month after month, but when at last I 

tried 
One mild May night to do as in the song. 
She just said, "Alden Carr, behave your- 
self!" 
And Alden Carr behaved. 

Thus far in life 
I'd met with no one from the outside 

world. 
But this year in the summer holidays 
A painter came to board with us. Just 

how 
He knew the bay, and why he chose our 

house 
I don't remember, but he picked me out 
To carry his things for him. When 

Mother fumed 
Because I left my farming, my new friend 
Insisted, giving reason for his whim 
And paying me a grown man's wage be- 
sides. 
*'I can't paint pictures when a stupid boor 
32 



BAY 

Is glowering at me/' he would often say. 
*'I must have some one there with eyes 

in his head 
To tell me if my work looks right. A boy 
Who has lived outdoors in such a place as 

this 
Should beat the soundest critic in the 

world, 
If only he can get my point of view." 
This was the way he used to start with 

me: 
He'd fill his canvas in with general tones 
In large bold masses, make me turn my 

head 
Sideways, and ask me if they matched the 

real. 
It took some time before I came to see 
Just what he wanted. "So you didn't 

know 
That hill was blue," he said the first day 

out; 
"Thought it was green because the grass 

was green. 
But look now, only lean your head and 

look — 

33 



SEA AND BAY 

It's blue, you see. We let our foolish 

minds 
Obscure our eyes. No matter what you 

think, 
If you think wrong. Start fresh and get 

the facts — 
That puts men right in life as well as art.'* 
So after a while I got to know his ways 
And fit myself to suit them. — Short he 

was, 
Dapper and stoutish, rather old than 

young, 
And therefore set In his manner. At the 

core 
Dead earnest, but as playful on the top 
As any truant schoolboy. None the less 
He kept you where he wanted you. His 

name 
Was Atwood Brinton. 

By the second week 
We two were like old comrades, for he 

talked 
Between the bursts of painting, and his 

speech 
Had all the life and color of his brush. 
34 



BAY 

Longing to question him, I quickly found 
That If I chose my time It rather pleased 
Than Irked him. When he measuredly 

pronounced 
His first large picture finished, I inquired 
If those grey blurs were trees, those 

brown ones cows. 
And why he didn't make them look more 

real. 
"Look, youngster, look! You think you 

see a cow 
Because your mind tells you It is a cow. 
And, knowing what cows look like from 

near by, 
You force the details into what you see 
From far. But shut your meddling mind 

and look. 
You don't see horns and shoulder, ribs 

and tail; 
You see a brown spot. Well, and there 

you are!" 
Then his enthusiasm for art and life 
Were still so fresh. I thought I had posed 

him once, 

35 



SEA AND BAY 

When he'd been saying Nature was so 

grand 
That even the greatest painter couldn't 

hope 
To put the whole on canvas, I inquired 
If photographs weren't better than his 

art, 
Since they put all in. "Put in all of what? 
Why, all the trees and clouds and waves, 

you say. 
But does that give you Nature? No, no 

more 
Than the town census gives you breathing 

men. 
Dry facts aren't Nature; Nature is a 

thrill, 
A bounding in the blood. Leave out 

man's heart 
And there is no Nature, only stocks and 

stones. 
Nature is just the wide deep soul of things 
That speaks to all of us, giving each no 

more 
I'han he can comprehend. Those men 

who paint 

36 



BAY 

Just rocks and trees do worse than pho- 
tographs, 
But he who paints the harmony and joy 
Which Nature's voice awakens In his soul 
Brings, poet-like, new beauty down to 

earth. 
As no man's soul Is big enough to grasp 
The whole of Nature, so In some degree 
The greatest painters fail. — Why, bless 

the boy! 
His brow's as wrinkled as a millionaire's, 
His eyes are bulging and his mouth agape. 
Don't try to gulp all Emerson at once. 
Sonny, but give me a hand here with my 

traps 
Or else we shan't be home by supper 



He made the commonest things seem 
wonderful, 
And let a flood of feeling and ideas 
Pour in upon my mind. When he found 

out 
That I was quick at books, he lent me his, 
37 



SEA AND BAY 

Especially poetry, and best of all 
His voice evoked the living music hid 
In each harmonious cadence. By his aid 
I saw the host of rebel angels whelmed 
In gulfs of quenchless fire. His sympathy 
Revealed the limpid depth of Words- 
worth's mind. 
I saw prismatic hues of Shelleian joy, 
And drank delicious nectar draughts of 

Keats. 
"Poems and music teach men hoW to 

paint, 
And pictures how to write," he often 

said. 
Two things perplexed me in my new- 
found friend: 
First, why with all the world from which 

to choose 
He came to summer by our barren shore; 
And why with all his passionate delight 
In poetry he wrote none for himself. 
One rainy day, though, he replied to both 
These points by handing me a scribbled 
sheet: 

38 



BAY 

A Painter in New England 

Did you ever note the beauty of the soft 
New England grasses, 
All the ochres, reds and browns? 
And the flowers: the purple asters and the 
goldenrod's rich masses, 
With the cardinals^ flaming gowns, 
Dots of blood against the tangle of the 

reedy, lone morasses, 
Where the nodding cat-tails rustle under 
every wind that passes. 
Ah! what reticent depth of color. 
Growing brighter, growing duller, 
As a smile of sunlight broadens or a brow 
of storm-cloud frowns! 

Have you read the blazoned glory of the 
sunset's revelations. 
Glowing scarlet streaked with gold; 
Have you seen the sky-towers crumbling 
in stupendous conflagrations. 
Passing gorgeous to behold? 
While the east is hung with tapestries in 
dove-serene gradations, 
39 



SEA AND BAY 

And the naked vault of heaven is filled 
with rosy undulations? 
Where in all the world resplendent 
Or the poet's mind transcendent 
Can such miracles be rivaled, form so 
grand or hue so bold? 

Have you watched the dreamy progress 
of a gray New England schooner 
Drifting seaward with the tide 
Darkly down a lane of radiance, dawn-lit 
gold or silvery lunar, 
Ribbon narrow or ocean wide? 
Such a boat in such a background I will 

paint you ten times sooner 
Than a lily-perfect yacht with drooping 
topsail and ballooner. 
No, for me the old-time vessel 
In a land-locked bay to nestle 
Till the light wind flaps her staysail and 
the light wave laps her side. 

Have you shrunk before the grimness of 
the rugged longshore ledges 
Where the groundswell surf rolls in 
40 



BAY 

Round the hattlemented coastline with its 
walls and bastion wedges? 
Hark! the cave-resounded din, 
As a breaker smites the granite with the 

strength of giant sledges, 
And a swaying fringe of foam enfolds the 
rampart's dripping edges. 
Lovely lands across the ocean 
Thrill the heart with quick emotion. 
But the shore of staid New England holds 
a rapture hard to win. 

These lines of Brinton's gave the common 

sights 
Of every day an unfamiliar tone. 
It filled me with delight, almost with awe 
To find the quiet district where I lived 
So full of inspiration. When I tried 
To master this, the painter mused a while 
Before he spoke. "Yes, boy, no land Fve 

seen 
Can speak to me as this does. Just the 

same 
I'm not surprised that you're surprised at 

me. 

41 



SEA AND BAY 

It's only after you've enriched your eyes 

With years of travel that you get to know 

The things you used to look at as a boy. 

You've got to live and spread. It's not 
the eyes 

At all I really mean, it takes the soul 

To see the only things worth looking at. 

Go out and live first, then come back and 
see." 

I told him I was poor. *'Don't stop for 
that," 

He urged me; '*seize your chance and get 
away, — 

It don't much matter where, but get be- 
yond 

Your bay and see yourself with other 
eyes." 

Our conversations used to make me feel 
Half proud and half abashed that such a 

man 
Should waste his genius on a country boy. 
At last the day before he was to leave 
I hinted this. He laid a kindly hand 
42 



BAY 

Across my shoulder, looked me in the 

eyes, 
And with a gentler and more personal 

tone 
Than he had ever used, he said, "Young 

chap, 
Fm fond of you. There's something in 

your look 
That tells me you're worth while. I like 

to talk, 
That's true enough — it lets my pressure 

down 
And clears me of cobwebs — but I'm not 

the man 
To speak about the things I care for most 
With every one. I noticed from the start 
How quickly you caught on, how keen you 

were 
To wrestle with new problems; and I've 

watched 
Your face light up with glowing earnest- 
ness 
When finer thoughts evoked your finer 
self. 

43 



SEA AND BAY 

Then I found out the pace you set at 

school, 
And let you have your head. The way 

you ran 
To what was best In Nature and In books 
Made me feel doubly certain I was right 
In what I thought before. Lad, don't for- 
get 
You've got the aptitude for better things 
Than farming. See you get away from 

here. 
If lack of money keeps you, write to me. 
Another thing. Last Sunday afternoon 
I saw you with a girl." (Hilda It was, 
With whom I went much less when Brln- 

ton came.) 
"Don't blush, I compliment you on your 

taste ; 
She seemed a very queen of curds and 

cream. 
As Shakespeare says. Now lots of silly 

chaps 
Find sweethearts long before they find a 

trade. 

44 



BAY 

Don't you do that. Go out and make your 

way 
Before you ask her. Maybe she's the girl 
Of girls for you, but look around a bit 
And you'll not choose the worse." 

The following day 
I drove my patron to the train; we said 
Good-bye, and he was hurried from my 

sight. 
But even had we never met again, 
I could not show with any words of 

mine 
The influence which his summer visit had 
On all my later life. 

The next year passed 
In life monotonous as the quiet bay. 
Rippled by crispy wavelets of events, 
Till like a swift, appalling tidal-wave 
Came tragedy. One Sunday late in June 
A friend of mine had taken his sweet- 
heart out 
To sail, and I was watching from the 

shore. 
The breeze died down, the lifeless atmos- 
phere 

45 



SEA AND BAY 

Was sultry and oppressive. Soon I saw 
That in the north dark clouds were piling 

up, — 
A squall for sure. The boat was two 

miles out 
But near an island; safe enough, I 

thought. 
The clouds flew quickly like a thronging 

troop 
Of genii that one reads of in the tales, 
Black and malignant, while a coppery 

light 
Glowed underneath. Across the water 

spread 
A shadow like an inkstain, flecked with 

white. 
It neared the boat. 'Twas time my friend 

dropped sail 
And pulled to the island. Then — what 

can he mean? 
Surely he won't — ^but yes, he comes about, 
Misjudging or in pure foolhardiness, 
To run full sail before the driving gust. 
Ah, well, perhaps he'll make it. The first 

puff 

46 



BAY 

He weathers, edging carefully across 
Till opposite the beach where, terror- 
fixed, 
I follow every plunge. He nears the 

shore. 
Already I can see the girl's white face 
And his neck-muscles, tense and resolute. 
When with a merciless push the brutal 

storm 
Crushes the struggling sail against the 

waves. 
My will flames up. I launch my heavy 

skiff 
With desperate strength to meet the sud- 
den need. 
Shoving her through the breakers, jump- 
ing in. 
And tugging at the oars. Not fifty yards 
Away they're clinging to the upturned 

keel 
That wallows deep, death-cradled in the 

trough 
Between the foaming crests. I battle on 
And try to think.— I've got to get them in 
47 



SEA AND BAY 

Before they pass the point. No easy job 
To keep from swamping in a sea like 

this. — 
There ! Dead ahead ! I mustn't run them 

down. 
Good boy! He's got her fast. No time 

to lose. 
Now up alongside, ship oars and drag her 

in! 
I have her shoulders. Quick ! before this 

wave — 
Thank God! she tumbles somehow into 

the boat. 
Now him. — That breaker threw us far 

apart. — 
Where is he? There's the slippery keel, 

but where 
Is he? — I stand and stare across the 

gulfs. — 
No form, no cry to show me where to 

turn. 
No time to weigh the horror. Back to 

shore ! 
Or lose her too. 

48 



BAY 

Well, that was all. IVe heard 
That drowning men come up before they 

sink ; 
It was not so with him, I never saw 
His living face again. — It all came back 
Just now as if I lived it while I spoke, 
And yet 'twas forty years since. — Oh, the 

girl! 
She's now a grandmother, very handsome 

still 
They say.^ — But to come back to where I 

was. 
Mother, when they had got me to the 

house, 
Began to scold as if I'd just been caught 
In mischief: "Mercy me! He'll get his 

death 
Of cold. Soaked through, and in his Sun- 
day clothes!" 
Her care soon brought me round, and 

people said 
That she was proud of me; but she never 

let 
Me see it. All she said was, "Let this be 
A warning to you." How I couldn't guess, 

49 



SEA AND BAY 

Till when I was well at last she spoke It 

out. 
^'Promise me, Alden, that you'll never go 
To sea. No good will ever come of it, 
And I should never spend a quiet night 
Thinking you might be took like Edward 

Coles." 
''But, Mother, that was on the hayJ' 

"What then? 
Wouldn't the sea be twenty times as bad?" 
Perhaps she was right; to me she only 

proved 
The very opposite of what she wished. 
Poor Edward's fate was terrible, but then 
I thought that, if a man might drown at 

home. 
He had better far strike out into the world 
And so get something for his risk. The 

farm 
Grew daily more distasteful. I would 

roam 
More often on the cliffs to watch the surf. 
The dithyrambic rapture of the sea. 
My wanderlust was fed by all I saw 
50 



BAY 

And all I read. A book of Shakespeare's 

plays 
Which Mr. Brinton sent me stirred my 

soul 
With passion for adventure : noble deeds, 
Chlvalric love, the conduct of affairs. 
The bold plots of ambitious villainy 
So humanly portrayed, all nursed In me 
The spirit of unrest, of discontent 
With mean surroundings. — Often at the 

quay 
rd wait to watch the dingy mackerel boats 
Ball out their slippery load of shining 

fish, 
And hear the old salts tell of deep-sea 

work. 
Of halibut that weighed three hundred 

pounds 
And fabulous hauls of cod. While I was 

there 
One evening. Uncle slapped me on the 

back. 
"How'd you enjoy to try the Banks?" he 

asked. 

51 



SEA AND BAY 

I must have looked my answer, for he 

said, 
"We'll think it over, boy," and strolled 

away. 
I worked my best at school with vague 

ideas 
That this would somehow help, and when 

I had time, 
I sought the cliffs and shared the ocean's 

mood: 
Its huge reproach of craven languidness, 
Its sting to manly enterprise, its voice 
Of elemental strength; and many a night 
My heart would throb as if the keen salt 

tide 
Was poured into my veins. No more for 

me 
The torpid reaches of the mawkish bay! 

One thing alone restrained me. It was 
not 
Mother (nor yet the farm, which Phil 

could take) 
Nor Jane, whose counsel I no longer 
sought, 

52 



BAY 

Though least of all would she have held 

me back. 
No, it was Hilda; for a time eclipsed 
By last year's visitor, but shining now 
With the more radiance. — I was just 

eighteen. 
Finished with school, and galled past 

words to tell 
By toil that bent and dulled and brutalized 
All that was best of me. In one more 

year 
The blisters would be callous to the yoke 
And I a broken drudge; the time had 

come 
When I should make my choice of sea and 

bay. 
Hilda was of the bay, no longer now 
A sturdy school-girl, but a maid full- 
grown. 
Slender and tall and shy, yet kind to me; 
Face almost classic, hair a thrush-like 

brown. 
Blue eyes that shone with calm nobility. 
And voice clear treble (though 'twould 
break sometimes 
53 



SEA AND BAY 

Beneath the stress of Hilda's earnest 

thought) . 
A native grace she had in homehest things, 
And people loved her. No one else could 

charm 
The gloomy bitterness of Mother's 

moods, 
Or rouse in Phil the shame of awkward- 
ness; 
And she was Jane's best friend. 

One Sunday morn 
Uncle came round to tell me of a berth 
On a Newfoundland fishing-boat to sail 
Next Wednesday for the Banks. That 

afternoon — 
No storm had dared to frown on such a 

day — 
Hilda and I went rowing. Just before 
I had felt myself above the rural swarm, 
With my great prospects come to me so 

soon. 
But there alone with Hilda all my pride 
Grew meek, my self-conceit was over- 
awed; 
She was so simple yet so wonderful. 
54 



BAY 

The charm of all my boyhood memories 
Was clustered round her : that serene ex- 
panse 
Of shining beauty blest with azure light, 
The nestling islands, and the curving 

shore 
(Delicious as the line of Hilda's throat) 
Were consecrated visibly; and she. 
This maiden seated in my clumsy skiff, 
Was grown the living presence of the 

whole. 
As I have seen the sunset-glow pour down 
A dim cathedral nave, and dreamed the 

saint 
Was floating in the radiance, so her form 
(Though plainly clad as suited with the 

scene) 
Was shrined ethereal in the misty beams 
That flooded through a rift of western 

cloud. 
Nor did her aureole vanish when the skiff 
Crunched on the pebbles of the lonely isle 
Which we had planned to visit. Out she 

stepped; 

55 



SEA AND BAY 

We climbed the bank and strolled until 

we found 
A plot of greensward where the fading 

lights 
Play trixy through the trees. There we 

sat down 
And talked of my career. She asked to 

know 
If it were true I thought to go to sea. 
I told her yes, I had no calling here, 
That life was cramped within the narrow 

bay 
And that the ocean was the sole escape. 
**Your mother, Alden, will she let you 

go?" 
"It's not a case of letting. I can't stay 
And stifle here." 

"How can you speak like that? 
Your folks have always lived here hap- 

Your friends are here. Why should you 

go away 
From every one that cares for you. The 

sea's 

56 



BAY 

So wild and fierce. Father don't set much 

store 
By sailors, calls them all a shiftless set 
That lead an ugly life. I know youVe not 
A rough boy, Alden. Is there nothing 

here 
To keep you?" 

Then the crucial conflict came. 
The bay shone forth so fair in Hilda's 

eyes 
That the rude sea shrank backward for 

a time. 
And I could have promised never to de- 
part 
Had I but dared to take her slim brown 

hand. 
But no. The tumult of the restless deep 
Swelled up and burst in bitter, angry 

words : 
"To keep me here? No, what should keep 

me here? 
Poor Mother frets, most people think me 

proud. 
And Jane, the one of all who understands, 
Says go. — Hilda, I want to be a man 
57 



SEA AND BAY 

And not a fence-pole rotting in the earth. 

No one gets on here, it's a stagnant pool; 

As if there were no larger way of life, 

No sea where tradewinds drive to for- 
eign ports. 

Where navies clash and danger leads to 
fame. 

Fd rather sail and drown on my first 
cruise 

Than mildew for a lifetime by the bay." 

Her eyes grew wide with terror and 
surprise, 

For never had she heard my thoughts 
rush out 

So vehemently. But Hilda had no fear 

In her own faith. *'You're talking wick- 
edly. 

Aren't we all given the places where we 
are 

To stay just there? Whoever does what's 
right 

Should always feel contented with his lot 

And not dispute with Providence. Only 
think. 

58 



BAY 

You know your mother loves you, and we 

all 
Admire you and expect great things of 

you. 
But why not do them here?" 

"Mend chicken coops 
And dig potatoes? Hilda, take my word, 
I wasn't meant to stay here. In my heart 
The call to launch out in the bigger world 
Is like the voice of God; it murmurs low 
And urgent as the steady southwest wind, 
Summoning me to find the bigger place 
That Fm to fill. Don't hinder me, — and 

yet 
Please don't forget me. Fll come back 

sometime, 
I hope, and find you as you have always 

been." 
She could not comprehend it, but she 

felt 
That I spoke truth. — In silence we rowed 

back; 
She musing with a puzzled, anxious look, 
I dreaming of my future on the sea. 



59 



PART II 
SEA 



Sea Song 

/ have lent fnyself to thy will, O Seal 

To the urge of thy tidal sway; 
My soul to thy lure of inystery, 
My cheek to thy lashing spray. 

For there's never a man whose blood 

runs wann 
But would quaff the wine of the brim- 
ming storm. 
As the prodigal lends have I lent to thee, 
For a day or a year and a day. 

And what if the tale be quickly told 

And the voyage he wild and brief? 
I can face thy fury with courage bold 
And never a whine of grief, 

Though peril-fanged is thy grisly 

track, 
The ship goes out that never comes 
back, 

63 



SEA AND BAY 

And the sailor^ s whitened hone's are rolled 
In the surge of the whitening reef. 

The shores recede, the great sails fill, 

The lee rail hisses under. 
As we double the cape of Lighthouse Hill 
Where sea and harbor sunder. 

Then here*s to a season of glad un- 
rest! 
With an anchor of hope on the sea- 
man's breast, 
Till I claim once more from thy savage 
will 
A soul that is fraught with wonder. 



Forth from the harbor, forth into the 
world, 

Forth on the heaving billowy ocean flood! 

No matter how or where, the crucial point 

Of each man^s life is when he leaves the 
bay, 

Spreads his white sails before the ruf- 
fling breeze, 

And takes the first plunge of the hollow 
surge. 

64 



SEA 

Oh, thrill of first adventure ! Overhead 

Flew pearly cloudlets; on our lee the cliffs, 

So formidable once, were fading low; 

Beneath, the cloven wave's translucent 
green 

Sprang into spray along the dipping stem; 

And somewhere out beyond those curling 
crests 

Lay, golden as with promise, the un- 
known. 
I skip the dull routine. A sailor's life 

On board a fishing boat is not much worse 

Than most apprenticeships. It seems to 
me 

That when a man signs on he takes his job 

For good or bad. Best like it if he can; 

If not, still pride and shame will see him 
through. 

The work was heavy, deep-sea lines and 
trawls. 

With all the seaman's regular round be- 
sides: 

Fog, storm, long hours of strain, bad 
food, hard words 

And little rest; yet somehow, all in all, 

65 



SEA AND BAY 

The time was good. It's good for any 

man 
To know he fills a place, to find himself 
Coming to blows with rough reality 
And learning the great game. But more 

than this, 
I liked the open, felt a dignity 
In playing my small part on such a stage, 
The clouds for background and the un- 
tiring sea 
For my antagonist. My companions, too, 
Though harsh of voice and feature, had a 

look 
Of strength, I almost think of majesty. 
Like Roman legionaries, battle-scarred 
By spears of wild barbarians In the north. 
We had great moments. Not a day went 

by _ _ 

But brought Its tithe of wonder : changing 

lights 
And aspects of the sea, a mighty fish, 
An ocean-liner cleaving through the fog. 
Old tales of daring told beneath the stars. 
The acrid taste has mellowed with the 

years, 

66 



SEA 

And when I choose a vintage of the past 
And set it to my lips, a youthful glow 
Steals from the well-stored wine of mem- 
ory 
Into my blood. 

I sit here by the lamp, 
Letting my thoughts drift back indefinitely 
Till some one scene grows clearer than 

the rest. 
Just now it seems to be a lonely night 
Of moonlight, mid the fog. — We slid, 

close-hauled, 
Across an easy swell. The fog all day 
Had baffled us; towards midnight now it 

thinned. 
Showing a dim wraith of the rising moon. 
Lustreless and forlorn. An eerie shock 
I felt to see beneath no waves at all. 
To float as it were in chaos — for the mist 
We lay in seemed to hang unpoised in 

space — ; 
Then vaguely to discern the chilly track 
Of the faint moonlight's fingers in a line 
Of blurred reflections o'er the black pro- 
found. 

67 



SEA AND BAY 

I was a weak soul in a world unborn, 
Intent upon that trembling, dubious sign 
Of nature taking form. An unseen brush 
Painted an unseen canvas with pale 

strokes 
Of silver. — While I dreamed, a heavy 

hand 
Fell on my shoulder, and a rumbling voice 
Growled out, ^'Eight bells ! Stand by for 

observations." 
I fetched my book and by the lantern's 

light 
Took down the figures, as the fog-bank 

passed 
And Bill could sight the Dipper. Strange 

It was 
There in the moonlight on the slanting 

deck 
To gaze across the weltering bright ex- 
panse. 
To hear the lap and gurgle of the waves, 
And then by looking at some distant star 
And doing sums like those I had done at 

school 
To ascertain just where on that wide sea 
68 



SEA 

Our little boat was tossing. — Very 

strange ! 
Out there, a thousand miles from home, 

but so 
I learned how science rules the modern 

world. 

Finding me quick at figures, Captain 

West 
Had made old Bill teach me the rule-of- 

thumb 
Of navigation. In a month or so 
I picked up quite a smattering, learned to 

use 
The sextant, calculate our longitude 
And plot the course. A lucky thing for me ! 
For when old Bill was thrown and broke 

his leg, 
I took his place, consulting now and then, 
And all went smoothly. When I came 

back home 
The bay meant nothing to me, I was all 
On fire to make my fortune on the sea. 
Folks thought me even prouder than be- 
fore, 

69 



SEA AND BAY 

But it was not so; now I felt myself 
A smaller person in a larger world 
Where I must make my way, cost what it 

might. 
My thoughts and speech were only of the 

sea, 
So that poor Mother knew not what to do, 
And Hilda was less friendly; only Jane 
Hailed my new triumph with unstinted 

joy. 
I studied navigation day and night. 
Then in the spring I came before the 

Board 
And got my license. Uncle Alden knew 
The owner of a coaster, and through him 
I shipped as second mate. 

I shall not tell 
The details of my progress, how at first 
The ocean seemed a highway to success 
Broad and inviting, with the ^'realms of 

gold" 
Not far to seek, just somewhere over 

there 
Across yon purple rim, beyond the lift 
Of grey sails in the ofiing. Day by day 
70 



SEA 

With tireless confidence I laid my course 

And strove to get my bearings ; here I had 
gained, 

There lost, and there again had been be- 
calmed. 

What wonder if a sailor thinks it luck? 

'Tis bitter discipline to do one's best 

And find that all the striving comes to 
naught. 

Frustrated by the whim of wind and tide. 

So the first vears it seemed, I had no way 

Of showing I could fill a higher place. 

Then came promotion, and from that time 
on 

I saw that every sailor has his chance 

With others. If his will-power gives him 
steam 

To drive him, and if knowledge holds the 
wheel, 

He'll dock with flags a-flutter, bands a- 
blare. 

Life after all is science and hard work; 

Failure means ignorance on the quarter- 
deck 

Or laziness in the engine-room. The start 
71 



SEA AND BAY 

Counts something, but good reckoning 

counts far more. 
The trip, God wiUIng, is a fair long 

course, 
The better boat has time enough to win. — 
YouUl note my figures changed from sail 

to steam; 
'Twas not an error but a simple fact, 
For after various berths I found myself 
Mate on an ocean liner. I was then 
But twenty-five, still young for such a 

post. 

I liked my calling, liked to think I 
lived 
By service to my fellows; not by tricks 
Of pulling down some rival from above 
And climbing to his place, but by sheer 

grit. 
By fighting only with the elements. 
Where victory meant a gain to all con- 
cerned. 
With every trip I came to love the sea 
More passionately, — that purple foaming 
cup 

72 



SEA 

Raised by an unseen giant toward the sun, 
While in the midst our vessel crept along 
Like some poor kicking, wing-bedraggled 
fly. 

Eager of spirit as I was, the sea 
Gave to me always more than I could 

take. 
That huge impersonal personality 
Through changing moods of loveliness 

and strength. 
Of starlight calm or devastating storm. 
Was always new and vital. No contempt 
Was bred of long acquaintance, but an 

awe 
Deep as the depth of mid-sea solitudes 
Fell on my heart with every dawn that 

bloomed, 
A saffron-petaled lily, in the east. 
For Aphrodite, mystic and divine 
As in the tales that charm the soul of 

youth 
In men and nations, floating on her shell 
Would wake and smile to greet the quick- 
ening light 

73 



SEA AND BAY 

Whose radiant fingers would unloose the 

robe 
Of rainbow mist that veiled her shining 

form, 
Fair as the rosy-tinted Alpine snow, 
And graceful as the gently curving wave. 
Here was no Venus to enflame desire 
And break the spell of dreaming, but a 

girl 
The maiden Aphrodite, ocean-born. 
Unwed, unwooed, unseen of mortal 

man, — 
The lover's earliest thought enshrined in 

light. 
Not touched by mid-day warmth. How 

oft I knew 
Delight no words can hint at! It would 

steal 
Upon me with the dawn, fading toward 

noon. 
And with the sunset hovering once again 
Above the glinting waters, till it passed, 
Leaving to me a joy more sharp than 

pain. 

74 



SEA 

Such was the ocean's loveliness. Its 
might, 
With throes of shattering, stupendous 

power, 
Aroused in me a sort of berserk lust 
To match with this grim foeman breast 

to breast. 
When the fierce gale descended with the 

dark. 
Lashing the waves which grinned like 

snarling wolves, 
And the keen wind flew screaming 

through the spars, 
I felt my Anglo-Saxon blood run fast 
To greet the combat. Then before my 

gaze 
A field of dismal carnage dimly stretched. 
Where heroes clove their way through 

walls of shields. 
And whizzing arrows laid the spearmen 

low. 
Or my stern fancy, with a bolder flight. 
Would limn the fatal Twilight of the 

Gods: 
The warriors of Valhalla grappling there 

75 



SEA AND BAY 

With giants and with demons, mighty 

Thor 
Strangling the Midgard Serpent, Odin 

near 
In deadly combat with the Fenris Wolf. 
I heard the whinnying of Valkyrie steeds 
Above the murky world, mid rolling 

clouds 
Shot through with shafts of lightning. 

Thus my mind, 
Fed with Norse fable, peopled all the 

stage 
With mythic monsters, when the wind and 

sea 
Would summon these gaunt shadows of 

the past. 
Bidding me claim the ancient heritage 
Bequeathed to me by viking ancestors. 

I could not long indulge myself with 

scenes 
Of Greek and Norse mythology. My 

work 
Was constant and exacting, a mistake 

76 



SEA 

Of hand or judgment and our ship had 

gone 
To Davy Jones. Unending mathematics 
Did now what once the practiced eye 

would do. 
All this has science wrought. So much 

is now 
Done by machinery, that the race of men 
Are scarcely more than tools in the great 

mill 
Of modern industry. Our lower self 
Is bestial, as the law of flesh ordains. 
Small room for soul is left between the 

two, 
Upper and nether mill-stones, grinding 

man 
'Twixt brutish sense and hard. Insistent 

mind. 
'TIs only Nature saves us from ourselves, 
Who with her simple love serene and 

strong, 
Her all-enchanting daylight wizardry, 
Calls to the child in us to come and play. 
To leave the unhealthy house of goblin 

thoughts 

77 



SEA AND BAY 

That scratch and scamper In the empty 

rooms, 
And come Into the open. If we yield, 
She will not cease to draw us on and on, 
Leading us mystically back to God. 
And what more godlike has our universe 
Than the unchanging, ever-changeful sea, 
The transient symbol of eternal truth? 

Sometimes amid the storm I heard a 
voice 

That penetrated to my soul; a voice. 

Persistent through the tremor of the 
winds 

And deeper than the crashing of the 
waves. 

Which gave me confidence. 'Twas not 
the voice 

Of reason, which had taught me to de- 
spair. 

The tones which then I heard were for 
the ear 

Of faith alone, and dimly as they spoke, 

They told me that my life was in His care 

78 



SEA 

Who had made the sea and held it in His 

hand. 
Once in especial did I feel that faith, 
In a West Indian hurricane: — waves 

mast-high 
And purplish black beneath a sky which 

hung 
Like the Great Terror, while a ghastly 

light 
Shone through, as if the malice of his eyes 
Glared out beneath the menace of his 

frown. 
Though gale and billow rushed at his com- 
mand. 
Yet he, beholding with satanic pride. 
Forbore to turn his Nero thumb and give 
The signal to destroy us. We meanwhile 
Fought for two days to meet the storm 

head-on, 
Our small ship lurching down the ocean 

hills 
As to some dread abyss, then pausing, ris- 
ing 
With slow heart-sickening effort, throw- 
ing tons 

79 



SEA AND BAY 

Of foamless water from her forward 

deck, 
To cilmb another hill with drunken heave 
And topple helpless downward. As her 

bow 
Thus overhung, a smaller wave would 

smite 
Like a skilled boxer's fist beneath the chin. 
Shattering the strength. A sidewise blow 

would drive 
Us bulwarks under, pushing ever down. 
Till scarcely we could stagger up again. 
Within the ship 'twas dark as doom, and 

screams 
Of women rang like shrieks of tortured 

souls. 
On the third day the rudder was torn off. 
The engine stalled, the steel plates 

wrenched and bent 
Till water poured in through a score of 

seams. 
The wind was even stronger than before, 
The sky more angry and the waves more 

huge. 

80 



SEA 

No one had slept, our food was running 

short, 
And we were roHlng crippled in the 

trough 
Of waves so steep we hardly saw the sky 
Between them. Then at last the captain 

paused 
From fighting, and his tense-drawn face 

relaxed. 
(I was alone with him in the pilot house.) 
His solemn gentle look was strange to me 
Amid such pressing peril, till he spoke : 
"Carr, under God, we've done the best we 

could. 
We'll leave it to His will, perhaps He 

means 
To show how vain our efforts are and 

make 
Us trust in Him entirely. — ^Well, I do. 
And if we sink next minute, as we may, 
I'll never think but He ordained it so. 
And yet His Hand might save us even 

now." 
I looked toward heaven as the vessel rose, 
8i 



SEA AND BAY 

And there above the wave's long crest I 

saw 
A blue rift open in the pall of cloud, 
And thin pure rays of sunlight spilling 

through. 
Then the Great Terror trembled, and the 

glare 
Faded within his eyes, his form dislimned, 
He shrank away before the smile of 

God.— 
That night the tempest fell and we were 
saved. 
There was God's mercy. Oftener still 
His love 
Would be made visible, when, sunset- 
blest, 
My gaze would drift across the glimmer- 
ing floor, 
inimitably lovely, till it reached 
And rested on the glowing citadels 
Of rare celestial promise, crowned with 

light 
Eternal; for although the sun would sink. 
My soul would take such living hues of 
joy 

82 



SEA 

That memory's brush might use them once 

again 
To paint the scene in hours when prison- 
ing skies 
Would shroud the day with gloom. 

These greater times 
Of exaltation and of insight came 
But seldom with their high transcendent 

power; 
Not often was It granted me to read 
The word of God (I mean the world) 

with faith 
So happy. No, nor could I always feel 
The Grecian beauty or Teutonic strength 
Reflected from the myths I used to read 
In school-boy days. Most of the time it 

seemed 
The ocean was a well-established friend, 
Breathing a cheerful boisterous comrade- 
ship, 
Jostling and tussling as we romped along 
To try my strength and temper, keep me 

fit 
In mind and muscle. Or again in calm 
83 



SEA AND BAY 

The deep would be a woman, gentle- 
browed, 
But full of ancient guile which blinked 

askance 
As serpent-subtle as the liquid look 
Of Cleopatra's veiled and languid eyes. 
Something there was of wickedness, — 

which all 
Must meet who would not shun the whole 

of life, — 
With much of whimsical indifference. 
So looked the ocean, and I loved the look. 
And there were other moods innumerable: 
Fits of the sullens under leaden clouds, 
Fizzlings of kittenish temper. Then at 

night 
In stifling calms of tropic latitudes, 
The sea would slumber like an odalisque 
With silver bosom and voluptuous limbs 
Foam-pillowed there beneath the passion- 
ate stars. 
So Nature gave me knowledge of the 

world, 
And things which most men seek for in 
their kind 

84 



SEA 

I saw in this her mighty looking-glass. 
'Twas for such knowledge that I bore the 

pains 
Of endless mathematics. 

As I said, 
I had small leisure in those prentice years 
For anything but charts and logarithms. 
A host of fancies filled my vacant hours 
Just as in boyhood, though I spent some 

time 
Learning the speech of countries where 

we touched. 
So life was well divided; strenuous work 
As hard and actual as a marhne-spike, 
And leisure on whose soft and dreamy 

tide 
I floated to another world. No doubt 
But that I nursed a growing self-conceit 
Of my own way of living, for I sought 
No friends, I asked for no society; 
The world of suffering, all the vast com- 
plex 
Of human strife and sorrow, was for me 
An ugly tangle — none of my affairs; 
I had my separate duty to fulfill. 
8s 



SEA AND BAY 

With other officers I seldom went 
Beyond the laugh of messmate jollity. 
My puritan training by the bay had given 
A feeling of reserve when glasses clinked 
And speech threw off restraint; my studi- 
ous bent 
Held me aloof as often, — better give 
My time to mastering French than lose 

it all 
In vain enjoyment. What New England 

word 
Holds so much ready-made philosophy 
As the word "waste"? I didn't mean to 

waste. 
I never spoke of what I really loved — 
My memories of the bay, my lone sea- 
dreams — 
But used to watch and listen to the rest 
Without much mixing in. Though I be- 
came 
The target of their wit as once I had been 
The mark of school-boy snowballs, yet I 

grew 
Ere long case-hardened. Thus on sea or 
shore 

86 



SEA 

I lived alone and did the better work. 
Women I met but did not learn to know. 
The thought of Hilda kept me from the 

haunts 
Of the worse kind; and had I really found 
A girl who would have roused the best in 

me, 
I lacked the dash that storms a woman's 

heart, 
And my profession never left me long 
In any single port. Such then I was 
At twenty-five, not lonely but alone 
And quite content to stay so. 

It was now 
For the first time I really had a chance 
To see strange lands and peoples. From 

the ship 
These lands had seemed a moving-picture 

show 
Unrolling in an endless film, while we 
In our high station were the gallery gods. 
My days on shore had been more 

thronged with sights — 
The film had run more quickly, one might 

say, — 

87 



SEA AND BAY 

But I had never lived myself Into 

The life of those I saw. At last one 

March 
Our boat was dry-docked, and the officers 
Given a three-months' leave. Before, I 

used 
To spend my furloughs by the bay, but 

now — 
My eyes began to twinkle at the 

thought — 
I was for Paris ! 'Twas not that I meant 
To plunge into the current, just to taste 
The joy of danger. Puritan principles 
Grow somewhat out of fashion by long 

wear. 
So done, I settled at a cheap hotel. 
Drank absinthe, roamed the Latin quar- 
ter, went 
To student balls, revues and cabarets. 
I saw the usual sights — the Louvre, Ver- 
sailles — 
And being alone spent all my time Indeed 
Most commonplacely. In the afternoon 
I often took a carriage in the Bois, 
Till when the useless melting of the francs 
88 



SEA 

Wore on my nerves, I would dismount In 

haste. 
Twas pleasant wandering through the or- 
dered groves 
To watch the amorous couples; she with 

looks 
Bent on the ground, mute and expression- 
less; 
He voluble as a magpie, leaning toward 

her 
With watery eyes and weak importunate 

hands. 
Better I liked the family picnic groups: 
The fat old father dozing with his pipe. 
The mother packing up, their progeny 
Tossing a colored ball — they never caught 

it, 
But laughed and ran and tossed, and 

laughed the more. 
At night I strolled along the glittering 

Seine, 
Noting the richness of the yellow lights 
Set in a violet haze, or softlier still 
Reflected from the black and broken 
stream, 

89 



SEA AND BAY 

While far above rose the gray spectral 

towers 
Of Notre Dame. Then with a sudden 

burst 
I would come out into that blind white 

glare, 
The Place de la Concorde. A dash across, 
And I would enter the "Elyslan Fields," 
Cool haunts of quiet, noble avenues 
Of trees — though scarcely then inhabited 
By spirits of the blest. But to be frank 
The sights I saw within doors or without, 
The painted women and the leering men. 
Were more than I could stomach. I had 

read 
In Swinburne of the glories of the flesh, 
"Rapture and roses," but a single glimpse 
Of pleasure, so miscalled, sufficed for me. 
It seemed as though the vices of the East, 
The abominable rites of Ashtoreth, 
Were here transplanted to put forth new 

flowers 
A hundred-fold more poisonous and ob- 
scene. 
I tried to vent the fancy in a song. 
90 



SEA 



The Song of Paris 

Oh, I am the new Astarte, 

The goddess of midnight sin. 
At eve when I mount to my throne on high 
The terrible hue of leprosy 

Gleams white on my scaly skin. 
But the music clashes and ye grow blind, 
The lust-whip lashes you, sense and mind, 
Ye knaves, ye knaves. 
Ye knaves that boast you are free. 
Though ye quaf amain till the quick cham- 
pagne 
Makes cruel the heart and mad the brain. 
Ye are slaves, ye are slaves. 
Yea, thrice-bound slaves to me. 

Oh, I am the modern Circe 

Of men with the souls of swine. 
Blaspheming the purest of gods above, 
You feed upon lust and call it love. 
Ye man-seeming beasts of mine. 
You may drink or dance, you may drab 
or play 

91 



SEA AND BAY 

Till you shrink askance at the dawn of 
day 
From the flame, from the flame, 
From the flame of the angry sun. 
Whirl on, whirl on like the dizzy roulette, 
The grim old banker will have you yet 
Ere the game, ere the game, 
Ere the perilous game be done. 

One morning, steered by fate, I drift- 
ed through 
The Luxembourg Museum, and very 

soon, 
Still steered by fate, I came upon a shoal 
Of foreign paintings. Very listlessly 
I tacked about, when with a sudden puff 
A gust of feeling took my sails aback 
And laid me on my beam-ends. — There it 

hung 
An innocent little canvas, four by three; 
But with the first quick glimpse it took my 

soul 
Into another world. — I seemed to stand, 
A youngster in his teens, beside the Bay 
In Farmer Lawton's field, looking beyond 
92 



SEA 

The new-piled ricks toward Cladding's 
Cove. 

The clouds, 
High and transparent, floated meltingly 
Across the pale blue sky. 'Twas after- 
noon. 
The day had been a sultry one, for still 
The scent of yarrow and bayberry was 

warm. 
Although a fresh sea-breeze was blowing 

in 
And crisping the smooth inlet. — I beheld, 
I reveled, but a sinking emptiness 
Came o'er my spirit. Something once I'd 

had 
That I had done without, but wanted 

now; 
It was not home or kin, not Hilda even. 
Then — then the curtains of the past 

swung back 
And there he stood: short, stout and jocu- 
lar 
As ever, with his keen dark eyes alert 
To pierce into the heart of things, his 
glance 

93 



SEA AND BAY 

Kind, but less kindly than Inspiring. Ah ! 
At last I knew — I needed comradeship : 
An eye to see the best In me, a voice 
To call that best to being. Only once 
Had such a friend been mine; I bent and 

read 
His name upon the picture : Atwood Brin- 

ton! 

Half an hour later I was being shown 
Up a dark staircase, at the second door 
I knocked, the door was opened, there he 

stood ! 
He eyed me, started, took me by the arm. 
And turned me to the light, then looked 

again. 
^Tes, by the Lord, it's Alden Carr!" 

With that 
He gripped my hand in both of his. Ten 

years 
Faded, and I who stood a head above him 
Shrank to a boy; the tears were in my 

eyes. 

Rare were the days that followed, for 
'tis rare 

94 



SEA 

After a ten years' gap that severed ties 
Unite so promptly. Brinton, I soon 

found, 
Had overworked himself, was feeling 

blue — 
"Shop and sophistication," he once said; 
"I need the tonic of a country face 
For my complaint." We talked of life 

and art 
And books; he wondered that I'd read so 

much. 
"Some of my seed fell on good ground, I 

hope; 
It hasn't always been so." When I grew 
More free with him I found at length a 

chance 
To show my "Song of Paris." "Not so 

bad," 
His comment was : "Been reading Swin- 
burne, eh?" 
My blush was answer. "No, not bad at 

all, 
For your small point of view. But mind, 

young man, 

95 



SEA AND BAY 

YouVe only seen one phase, and note be- 
sides 
It's seldom all you see is all there is." 
He took me round, and showed me other 

sights : 
The scientists, the cheerful family life. 
The genuine artists — not the kind that 

wear 
Slouch hats, loose neckerchiefs and cordu- 
roys; 
But normal-looking citizens. We made 
Excursions to the country, saw the folk 
That Millet painted, visited chateaux, 
All harmony and elegance. What cliffs 
We found at Etretat, what glass at 

Chartres, 
What pretty woodland nooks at Fontaine- 

bleau! 
And everywhere I saw beneath the 

scum, 
Like a deep stream that runs through 

stagnant pools. 
The true French people, clean and pure 
and strong. 

96 



SEA 

All this I owed to Brinton. Art and 

life 
Revealed their hidden treasures at his 

word. 
Much he had seen, and two rare traits of 

soul 
In him were blended: first, a love of life, 
A sprightly, never-tamed enthusiasm; 
And, hardly less, a firm judicial sense 
Of Intellectual honesty. The two 
Would often be at war, but for myself 
I half despise a man whose ways are set 
In a hard mould of self-complacency. 
As mine had been too much. "Don't bind 

your eyes 
With prejudice and play at bllnd-man's- 

bufi 
Your whole life through," was Brinton's 

favorite saw. 
Why we got on so well I hardly know, 
Except that I did feel within my heart 
A longing for the truth, a willingness 
To try to see. Whatever was the cause. 
We chimed ; the years between his age and 

mine 

97 



SEA AND BAY 

But made the concord sweeter. Then one 

day 
While rummaging through his pictures, 

suddenly 
Turning from an old canvas, Brinton 

cried 
"Let^s go to Italy !'^ That night we went. 

We settled first at Florence. For a 

while 
My wits were at a loss; the city seemed 
So fearfully run down, and half the 

sights 
Were hid in churches dismal as the grave, 
Where images and Incense made me think 
Of Idol-worship. Michelangelo, 
However, took me prisoner at his will 
With one high sovereign look; I needed 

but 
To see his David kindling with God's 

rage- 
Funny! that marble eyes can flash — the 

while 
He measured off the distance to his mark. 
The forehead of Goliath. So I think 

98 



SEA 

We all should do: have temper in con- 
trol, — 
Heart like a boiler, head the engineer, — 
And then the Medici tombs ! I never saw 
The human body since without a leap 
Of wonder in my pulse. — The other chaps 
Were hard to know, but Brinton helped 

me out. 
"You don't like Giotto? Well I'd be sur- 
prised 
If you did like him at the start. But look ! 
That fresco is the voice of a strong faith 
Speaking the language of a child. His 

faith 
Is all he tried to give ; the lesser men 
Can mouth big words or scatter flowers of 

speech. 
And Fra Angelico is much the same. 
Just realize you're looking at a soul, 
And you'll see right. Those pink and 

gilded saints — 
What are they? Why, the joy of holiness 
Made visible — no lesser thing than that. 
Art after all is just a sort of dress 
99 



SEA AND BAY 

For soul: sometimes too meagre, oftener 

though 
Too rich — observe that Titian! — or 

again, 
Fantastic — Botticelli ! There's a soul 
Compact of subtle sweetness, but his garb 
Is so outlandish that the average man 
Thinks us all fools for bowing at his 

shrine. 
Perhaps the world, — nature and man 

alike, — 
Is but a manifold garment, as Carlyle 
Is fond of putting it; and all our aim 
Should be through all these forms to seek 

the Soul 
Which is in all and is all." 

Every day 
I learned to see art better, till at last 
I chose my favorites: Raphael first of 

course. 
Supremely lovely and supremely great; 
Tender Correggio, humanly divine; 
Aerial Tintoretto. Why I chose 
These three I scarce can tell — mere chance 

maybe. 

100 



SEA 

In each of them I felt a special power, 
Direct and elemental. 

But although 
Art loomed so big, It did not even then 
Block the free view of nature. Best of 

all 
Our trip, I think, were the long walks we 

took 
In the enfolding sunlight. Oft we scanned 
From high Flesole that scene of scenes : 
The city girt with terraced orange 

groves, 
Giotto's white shaft, the Duomo's sombre 

eye. 
The palace-towers and steeples. But in 

soul 
We looked upon the cradle of the arts. 
And Florence, the old nurse, her eyes 

grown dim 
With dreaming of her sons. — Then we 

would turn 
To view a modern phase, the countryside : 
Its new-turned loam and dust-gray olive 

trees, 

lOI 



SEA AND BAY 

The almond buds upturned like cool pink 
flames 

On branching candelabra ; over there 

A yellow villa suavely Indolent 

Mid cypress walks and rose-vines; close at 
hand 

A smooth white curve of road, a stone- 
breaker 

Who crouched in shade and cracked right 
merrily 

With his small hammer. Now a ponder- 
ous team 

Of milk-white oxen shouldered Into sight, 

Red ribbons on their horns; the driver 
wore 

A crimson sash and flicked a raw-hide 
whip. 

A little further by a cottage door 

A stolid beauty, grandly undisturbed, 

Nursed her bambino. Next, around the 
turn. 

We'd find a group of idlers round an inn, 

While to the sway of fiddle and of pipe 

Slim youths took hands and waltzed. 

102 



SEA 

Ere long this life, 
So pagan, free and bold, began to melt 
My stock of narrow notions. I could see 
Such ways were healthy, though they were 

not mine. 
And in the church or by the wayside cross 
Was pure religion, credulous possibly, 
But suited to the needs of simple hearts. 
*'The world is all one country" — that's 

the way 
These kind Italians put it, and it's true. 
Easy to read in books, but very hard 
To grasp in fact — at least it was to me. 

Rome we saw too and Venice, neither 

though 
Seemed half as genuine as Florence did. — 
I haven't Byron's brain, far less his voice. 
And ruins are to me just ruins. — But still 
With Brinton's help I caught a glimpse 

or two 
Amid the jumbled chaos; this at least. 
"Learn to see art and life as one," he 

said. 
And made me think it over. "Art is life 
103 



SEA AND BAY 

Seen by a master's eye. You don't see all, 
But you see deeper. Art's the specialist 
Who helps you look at life; and as for 

life, 
If you've not seen enough of life to feel 
The life in art — best leave them both 

alone 
And live mechanically with the crowd." 

Despite his flow of spirits I could see 
That Brinton often grew depressed; no 

doubt 
The years weighed down his elasticity, 
But with his stoicism in worldly things 
He ought to accept the unavoidable, 
I thought. One evening as the time drew 

near 
For our return, he spoke out: *'Alden, 

lad, 
I told you once not to tie up too soon. 
Perhaps I was wrong, at any rate too soon 
Is better than too late — or not at all. 
I'm getting melancholy; all my life 
I've drawn on my vitality — for art, 
104 



SEA 

For talk, for everything — and now my 

balance 
Is running short. A woman in your life 
Gives back to you what you lavish on the 

world, 
And children show you that you shall not 

die 
Even on earth here. I have lived in you, 
Alden, these last two months, and as we 

part 
The best advice I have is not to do 
As I have done. Go back then to your 

queen 
Of curds and cream, your Hilda, marry 

her 
If things are still the same. If not, then 

keep 
Your weather eye open as you cruise 

along." 

My furlough finished, I rejoined my 
ship 
With treasure-freighted eyes and mind too 

full 
Of undigested wisdom, but my heart 
105 



SEA AND BAY 

Now knew a keener pang of loneliness 
Than ever. Brinton's parting words sunk 

deep ; — 
I wanted more than friendship after all. 
The thought of Hilda often starred my 

dreams 
With tender radiance, but my later self 
Seemed large as Sindbad's genie. How 

go back 
Into that cramped bay-bottle and be 

corked ? 
I was a citizen of the world, forsooth ! 
'Twas summer now; the season had come 

round 
When human birds of passage flock across 
To Europe, and the thronging life on 

board 
Did but accent my blank of solitude. 
The mischievous youngsters romping on 

the deck 
Woke memories of school-days, girlish 

laughter 
Came to me from some happy distant 

world 

io6 



SEA 

That half belonged to me — I had read so 

much 
Of women and romance. With fierce 

regret 
I felt that I had shunned the life of men 
To skulk in books, which, as at length I 

knew. 
Gave me but murmurs of a sea more 

strange 
Than my beloved ocean. I looked on 
And longed to join, to mingle with the 

whirl. 
Be lost in it and lose my lonely self. 
My spirit languished in its narrow bay 
And longed to venture past the harbor 

mouth 
That shut me from the world of men out- 
side. 

Adventure to the young man's mind 
spells woman. 
Twas at New York I saw her come on 

board. 
Unknown till then, she touched the 
memory 

107 



SEA AND BAY 

Of my first view of ocean. Tall she was, 

Darkly majestic, falcon-eyed, her glance 

Moulded of starlight mystery and soft 
fire 

Most like the moonless glow of tropic 
seas. 

She looked upon me idly, caught my 
gaze, — 

That instant I was hers, deep, deep sub- 
merged 

In the first glamour of those dangerous 
eyes. 

Their look was not like Hilda's, frank 
and true 

(The bay smile), but a storm-cloud, light- 
ning-fringed. 

My soul was sailing an enchanted gulf 

Through labyrinths unknown and treach- 
erous reefs. 

While fragrant airs, from lotos islands 
borne. 

Stung the dull sense but steeped the wake- 
ful mind 

io8 



SEA 

To slumber at the helm. — Such dreams as 

this 
Held me by daylight on a crowded deck. 
The greater then her magic. She had 

power 
To waft her willing lover with a word 
From commonplace to-day to lands of 

wonder 
In timeless regions, lands of desperate 

deeds, 
(The flame-wild impulses of lawless love 
Which rend the robes of faith) — where 

Helen mourned. 
And cold Semiramis curled her scornful 

lip. 
Where Dido walked and proud-souled 

Guinevere. 
Such was our world and such was Rosa- 
mund. 
A woman with a past, the world might 

say. 
What then? The sea has witnessed many 

a crime 
Of love and blasting hate and fell revenge 
109 



SEA AND BAY 

Since Iseult paced the deck of Tristram's 

ship 
With murder in her heart for him she 

loved. 

One rants, no doubt, speaking of such a 

time, 
Where facts would seem but vulgar. All 

I know 
Is that for me, despite the taint of wrong. 
Those moments had a draught of ecstasy 
Not all debasing; I would not attempt 
All that a bolder man had scorned to miss. 
Her tyranny had bounds, but for the most 
I was her plaything. In our secret nook 
High up beneath the chill luxurious moon 
How often would she tease me with her 

lips 
And taunt me with her domineering eyes 
Because I dared not take, till spurred and 

checked, 
I yielded to her weakly, grovelingly, 
Owning myself no match; whether she 

willed 
To keep me off, or with more mad caprice 
no 



SEA 

Leaned back Into my arms and closed her 

eyes. 
Her mastery was to me a noble trait. 
Science she had to gauge the sudden thrill 
Of leaping pulses, or to drug the soul 
With anodynes and fierce Intoxicants. 
All that she did, she did from love of 

power; 
An arbitrary whim would give the spark, 
And straight her will would flame, her 

changing moods 
Were less from joy of mischief than 

desire 
To exercise her strength. We think the 

sea 
Malignant, but 'tis not so; quite by chance 
Calm and typhoon alternate, each as true 
A phase as other. Yet I feel the ocean 
Has joy of being, joy of curbless power, 
Whether It spare, destroy or cast adrift; 
Our part to meet each mood with stead- 
fast mind 
And our best skill. — The passage of eight 

days 

III 



SEA AND BAY 

Fled like a cloud, and Rosamund at the 

last, 
Deaf as the billow to a castaway. 
Laughing — as well she might — to hear 

my prayers 
And idle talk of marriage, flung me off 
Like so much seaweed on a barren shore. 

Crippled in strength and driven from 
my course, 

I swung a long while helpless, soul-be- 
calmed 

In sluggish doldrums and sargasso seas. 

Then, winning free, I veered with random 
flaws 

And dangerous currents; or, to put it 
plain, 

I worked without a purpose, gave myself 

To rougher uses, joining with the rest 

In drink and cards. I might have fallen 
low 

But for the stern New England self- 
respect 

Formed in my bay-life by my mother's 
care, 

112 



SEA 

Jane's pride in me and Hilda's friendly 

trust. 
But even so, the fibre of my thought 
Was coarsened and I listened now to tales 
Of woman's moral ugliness. One of 

these, 
No doubt because I made the case my 

own, 
Obsessed me till I put it into verse. 



Pedro's Plunge 

The sky was a dazzling turquoise, 

The sea was an amethyst, 
And the palm-fringed shore of a Cuban 
hay 

By the westering light was kissed, — 

When a steamboat came to anchor 
In the curve of the hot white sand. 

And a score of native boats put out. 
By swarthy half-breeds manned. 

Oh, some they would sell their luscious 
fruit, 

113 



SEA AND BAY 

And some they would sing and play. 
And some would dive for a copper coin 
Flung into the waveless bay. 

But one like a bronze Greek statue, 

Disdaining so mean a prize, 
Gazed up at a girl by the railing 

With humble passionate eyes. 

Then the calm of the scene was broken 
By a shout from a dozen throats: 

''Shark! shark F* and the splashing swim- 
mers 
Were tumbled into the boaJs. 

The girl looked out at the water, 
No shark did her gaze discern, 

She looked at the eager Pedro 
And saw his dark eyes burn. 

She held out a bright gold sovereign 
With a gesture of proud command 

And threw it out from the vessel 

With a toss of her slim white hand, 
114 



SEA 

The blood of his Spanish fathers 
Still pulsed in him hold and hot. 

What is death for the smile of a woman? 
And he dived like a plunging shot. — 

He dived, and the winking gold-piece 
Was clutched in his firm brown fist. 

And he turned to strike for the surface 
With a sudden, desperate twist. 

The beautiful girl applauded 

And leaned from her vantage-place 

As he rose, but she saw no pleasure 
In the look of his set sad face. 

The water was cut between them 

By a fin and a churning tail, 
A streak of white gleamed deadly 
bright. — 

The girl shrank back from the rail 

That instant the great shark got him 
And made for its deep-sea home. 

While vainly behind them shots rang out 
And hissed in the scarlet foam. 
115 



SEA AND BAY 

Such bitterness was mine, nor was it 

helped 
By failure in promotion. Slowly then 
My mind regained its vision till I saw 
How opportunity had passed me by 
While I was dawdling, so I took my chart 
And got my bearings. — My old life was 

gone. 
Ambition and sheer youth no more suf- 
ficed 
To drive me. Rosamund's flame had 

burnt away 
That glad unpausing energy, and I asked: 
Why should I slave more hard than other 

men. 
I could have worked for Rosamund, but 

that hope 
Had sunk forever, and I knew 'twas well. 
Yet, as it seemed, my buoyancy no more 
Sufficed to bear me up amid the crowd. 

One day soon after as I strolled along 
The level deck, a little girl ran out 
And fell against me. Looking down, I 
saw 

ii6 



SEA 

Blue eyes, part wonder and part merri- 
ment, 
Smile up with a pretty confidence that I 
Like all the world was friendly. When I 

paused, 
A lady from a neighboring steamer-chair 
Called out, "Come here directly, Dor- 
othy! 
Don't stop the officer." But I praised the 

child 
And begged to take her walking. After 

that 
I came each day; the father too I met. 
I never hope to find a happier three 
Than they were: Dorothy, some three 

years old. 
Gay as the sunlight on the dancing waves; 
The mother quiet, kind and equable 
Like Hilda, proud of all her daughter did, 
But deprecating too much praise from me; 
The father silent with a deep content 
As one who had no more to ask of life. 
They made a charmed circle, where the 
world 

117 



SEA AND BAY 

Might not intrude Its busy selfishness. 
At first I shared the habit of their joy 
Which I so long had lacked, but when we 

reached 
New York, a grief that almost rose to fear 
Possessed me, thinking that my life would 

soon 
Be lonelier by the contrast. I resolved 
To seek the bay and Hilda, there to win 
If possible a heaven of my own. 
The ocean waves of life were rough, I 

found. 
Good for the buffets which a man should 

bear, 
But bitter, restless, void of pity. Now 
The bay no more seemed narrow than the 

nest 
Seems narrow to the parent bird; and she, 
Hilda as I had known her, seemed more 

fair 
Than any lady clad in gowns of silk. 
I yearned to meet love where I had found 

it first, 
To cool my lips beside the pebbly spring 
ii8 



SEA 

That poured refreshment for my childish 
need. 

We passed the Statue and I said good- 
bye 
To my three friends, a blessing in my 

heart 
More earnest than my stammering speech 

could show. 
Returning to my cabin — such was fate ! — 
I found a letter lying for me there 
In Hilda's hand. I kissed and looked at it 
Before I opened. After many months 
Of silence, she my old-time love, to write 
Ere I could come, beseech her to forgive 
My long neglect, and ask her to be mine! 
At last I opened, read: As we had been 
Such friends, she took upon herself to 

write 
Instead of Phil. — Why did she drag in 

him? — 
To share with me at once the happy news 
Of — was I drunk, or dreaming, or gone 
mad? — 

119 



SEA AND BAY 

No, there it stood; the smoothly-flowing 

style 
Had swept me on a rock. Too late, too 

late ! 
She wrote that she was pledged to marry 

—Phil! 
I ground my teeth. That boy to cut me 

out ! — 
My bumpkin brother win the girl I loved I 

Such was life's irony. It was hours 

before 
I tried to reconcile my shattered wits 
With the hard truth. Then I grew 

cynical ; 
Young lady, since you take so poor a fish, 
'Tis well that AldenCarr escaped your net. 
Finally In self-torture I set out 
To try if Hilda's purpose might not 

change, 
At least to see her. There she was, as 

sweet 
As ever, not much older, but more grave 
With the solemnity of plighted love. 

I20 



SEA 

At first I acted strangely, but her way 
Soon won me from all rudeness. More 

than that, 
Fair as she was, I felt that now our hearts 
No more were kin, nor could I wish them 

so. 
I prized my sea-strength, lonely as I felt. 
Seeing once more the snugness of the bay. 
Phil was a man now; I could see his worth 
And wish him well in his great happiness ; 
But things were ordered otherwise for me. 
No doubt Jane spoiled me, for she won- 
dered so 
At all my ways, half-foreign as they 

seemed. 
And what I had seen and done (much 

magnified 
By sisterly love) — in short I was for her 
All she had ever hoped. Indeed she said 
She long had given Hilda up for me. 
Deciding I must bring some lady home 
From foreign parts. Mother was also 

kind, 
Repressing half her usual discontent 
And looking on me with a shade of awe. 

121 



SEA AND BAY 

I left them, but returned in two months' 

time 
To celebrate the wedding. Hilda looked 
So lovely in her simple village dress 
I hardly dared to kiss the lips of her 
Who now should be my sister, not my 

bride. 
I shared the sober feast, shook hands with 

Phil 
And bade him godspeed in his new estate. 
Then I was off again in double doubt: 
Nor sea nor bay accorded with me now; 
I knew no other counsel in my heart 
Than to forge blindly on in stoic mood, 
Half careless to what port my ship might 

sail. 



122 



PART III 
BAY AND SEA 



Song of Bay and Sea 

High on a ridge overlooking both the 
strands 

My cottage stands. 
In front the restless sea; behind, the bay 

Where quiet ripples play. 

In storm I watch the billows as they 
charge 

The rock-piled marge, 
Until tumultuous action's wine-like glee 

Throbs wild and strong through me. 

In calm I see the sunset's glimmering ray 

Illume the bay, 
And soft-hued joys of youth my vision 
bless 

With memory's loveliness. 

Thus all of life comes back: my boyhood 
first. 
In visions nursed; 
125 



SEA AND BAY 

Then the hard fights amid the tempests 
foam 
On ventures far from home. 



Therefore I pace the porch in calm con- 
tent 
For blessings blent, 
And, thankful for the gifts which earth 
has given, 
Await the will of Heaven, 



I'm fifty-five now as I stand and look 
In retrospect across my two-fold life 
Of bay and sea. I've won a moderate 

place 
And settled back Into a mild routine, 
Not hoping for much more, but satisfied 
To live my fullest life in those I love. — 
I'm fifty-five, but when I reach the time 
Of which I now shall write. Its fears and 

joys. 
The time between fades like a morning 

fog 
Before the ardor of remembered youth. 
126 



BAY AND SEA 

Once more across the broad Atlantic's 

back, 
But now with heart more leaden than the 

clouds 
That drifted o'er us in a gloomy shoal 
Like ugly fish. My courage, long sus- 
tained 
By hurry and excitement, had died out 
Within me, and I felt that I was sick. 
Tired In body by the ceaseless round 
Of unremitting duty, worn In mind 
By danger and responsible command, 
I now had naught to save me from myself, 
No hope, no gay diversion. Thus it was 
That fever took me. When we came to 

France 
The doctor thought it wise to put me off 
At Cherbourg, where the hospital was 

good 
And I might ride the squall out with a 

chance 
Of quick recovery. It was well advised, 
For I had six full weeks of sleepless 

nights 
And hot interminable days of pain. 
127 



SEA AND BAY 

The torturing thirst, the aching In my 

head, 
The blank routine of broth and bitter 

draughts ! 
How ready had I been to welcome death, 
If but to break the loathsome chain of 

hours 
That bound me to the torment of my bed ! 
At moments when the searing pain grew 

dull, 
My mind seemed somehow to detach itself 
And, hovering off, to gaze with pity down 
On the poor body, starved and sunken- 
eyed. 
I felt my soul might easily now take flight 
To find the father whom I had not known. 
In dreams like this I often seemed to lie 
Beneath the pigeon-loft, hearing the coo 
And flutter as I heard them when a child. 
And feeling that I was not far from 

heaven. 
Though some may find It wrong, I had no 

fear 
Of death ; my faults were many, as I knew, 
128 



BAY AND SEA 

But God's strong love was round me, and 

my trust 
In His forgiveness left no room for doubt. 

Meanwhile the busy nurses did their 
best 
To save me, and their gentle cooling 

hands 
Gave me continued comfort. They be- 
longed 
To some kind sisterhood; their dress and 

ways 
Were quiet, and their voices very calm. 
They and the doctor saved me, keeping up 
My spirit till with some faint hope of life 
I swallowed what they gave me. For a 

while 
I was indifferent, but I liked a fight 
Of any honest sort, and this was one : 
Keeping my head above the tide of death. 
Then followed better days, until one morn 
Doctor La Grange came toward me with 

a look 
So cheerful and so quizzical that I knew 
129 



SEA AND BAY 

Some kindness was in store before he 

said, 
^'Monsieur has gained so much in strength 

of late 
That I have brought a visitor. My 

daughter 
Has been so sorry for your pain, has felt 
Such interest, that I thought you would not 

mind 
If she should see you on the road to 

health." 
I looked, and there, as timid and as sweet 
As a white rosebud touched with bashful 

pink. 
She stood and smiled on me. The rising 

tears 
Lent crystal freshness to her wide gray 

eyes, 
As, leaning lightly toward me with an air 
That breathed of fragrant modesty, she 

gave 
Her hand and tried to speak, and flushed 

again. 
But when the words came, they were firm 

and clear: 

130 



BAY AND SEA 

"Poor Monsieur Carr-r," (how delicate 

the r!) 
''Father has told me how you bore your 

pain 
So bravely — you so young and far from 

home. 
I feared so much, and now that you are 

safe, 
I wish that I might help, too — if I can. 
Do you like flowers?" And there she 

showed a bunch 
Of rosebuds that might each have been 

herself, 
Had she become a flower, as well I 

thought 
She might have easily done. For me, I 

gazed 
Not on the gift but on the giver, for 
When one is weak, the spirit speaks direct 
Without confusion and without restraint. 
My spirit said, "I never saw a child 
So clad in simple loveliness as you, 
So dainty and so natural, with an air 
Of free refinement, winsome self-control — 
A garden prettiness, as one might say, 
131 



SEA AND BAY 

With something finer than a woodland 

flower, 
Yet naught more studied." She divined 

my look 
But was not angry; — she had come to 

please. 
I took the roses, held them to my lips, 
Managing it so quickly that I touched 
The slender fingers, thanked her as I could 
And tried to keep her longer. How she 

smiled 
With drooping lashes, promising to come 
And visit me again ! I asked her name. 
She told me "Seraphine." 

From that day on 

My strength rose like a tide. She called 
each noon. 

Sometimes she talked, sometimes she read 
to me. 

Or she would sing me graceful chanson- 
nettes 

With peasant melodies unvexed by art. 

I wondered she could sing so, uncon- 
strained 

132 



BAY AND SEA 

By all the other Invalids, who would stare 
And envy me. Then she would always 

say: 
"It is not quite the place that one would 

choose. 
But what of that? — I sing to make you 

well." 
How fast I gained! The doctor used to 

say: 
"Ah ! that's the new prescription. Please 

affirm 
You never had a better cordial yet." 
Soon I was able to be wheeled outside, 
And oh the joy ! to drink the living air. 
To drink the glowing earth, the shining 

sky 
Into my pain-parched being — best of all 
To drink the sea, with eyes and ears and 

lungs. 

But wait, I go too fast ; I saw no sea 
At first, but only drab and dingy walls. 
This the kind doctor noticed. The next 
day 

133 



SEA AND BAY 

Without so much as "by your leave" he 

came, 
Put me into a carriage, drove me off, 
Dosing me well with brandy on the way. 
And brought me to his cottage on the 

cliffs. 
Whence the blue ocean spread without a 

break. 
There was a doctor knew his trade, for 

him 
Not only Nature's drugs, but all her 

powers 
Were listed in the pharmacopoeia ! 
Is it ungrateful in me that I speak 
Of air and ocean first as having wrought 
My perfect cure? I tell but as it was; 
The lower nature must support the higher, 
The body is the spirit's pedestal. 
But the first effort of my fresh-won 

strength 
Was to turn head and heart toward Sera- 

phine. 
A nurse came with me from the hospital, 
But Seraphine was by me half the day; 
134 



BAY AND SEA 

More charming in her home, more free to 

show 
The treasure of her nature — how the child 
In her was but the virgin sheaf of petals 
That wrapped a woman's passionate heart 

within. 
How sweet then to be helpless, have her 

ask 
If she should talk to me or read or sing. 
Her sylph-like figure drifted through my 

thoughts 
As though to music, and I scarce could tell 
Whether I slept or woke, my dreams of 

her 
Being so like, and her true self so fair. 
Her face was haunted by an elf of joy, 
Elusive, peeping from a dimple here, 
Swinging invisible from a loosened curl. 
Or laughing in the sparkle of her eye. 

She listened to my stories of the sea 
And told me of herself,— her mother's 

death, 
Her lessons at the convent, childish hopes 

135 



SEA AND BAY 

And maiden disappointments; for her 
thought 

Flowed unconstralnedly from a mind un- 
spoiled. 

While I think back, there floats Into my 
sense 

A quaint old fisher tune with peasant 
words 

Which Seraphlne would sing me as I lay 

Out on the balcony, and the time drew 
near 

When I should climb back home across 
the broad 

Blue wall of water. This was how it ran: 



Fisher Song 

Wind that touches my lonely lips. 
Bear me a kiss from him. 

He is away with the fishing ships 
Out in the distance dim. 

Sigh, sigh, wind of the sea, 

Bearing my sailor-hoy^ s kiss to me, 
136 



BAY AND SEA 

Wind that cries in the stormy dark, 

Blow not so wild and free. 
Steadily speed with my true-love's bark 

Over the waves to me. 
Speed, speed, wind of the sea, 
Bearing my sailor-hoy hack to me. 

The words are trite and bare, no doubt 

the tune 
Was homely too, but somehow when she 

sang 
A plaintiveness would steal into her voice 
Till the soft tones would wreathe about 

my heart 
And bind it fast as in a net of flowers. 

Each day as through my veins the 
strength welled up, 
There welled up ever higher in my breast 
A love for Seraphine, a tenderness 
For all her pretty ways, a sweet desire 
For what her finer soul could give to mine; 
Her instinct for the beautiful, her tact 
In showing kindness (our New England 
way 

137 



SEA AND BAY 

Makes of a gift a burden, but with her 
A gently-spoken word upon the lips 
Was natural as its perfume to the rose). 
I needed things like this. I did not want 
A lady for the cottage I should build, 
But I did want that rarer sense of life 
Which Brinton first had shown me, — the 

expanse 
Of wider sympathies and higher thoughts, 
A strain of music for the intervals 
When the life-loom should pause, a rising- 
ground 
Of discontent from which I could survey 
My faults and then go down to drive them 

out. 
I thought this over. I had lost my rash 
Plunge-on-the-impulse spirit, so that now 
When love had come again, I knew the 

heart 
Should parley with the head ere both their 

fates 
Might be resolved on. And I thought 

then too 
For Seraphine. She was not in the way 

138 



BAY AND SEA 

To marry well. Her father — worthy 

man! — 
Had little save the stock of gratitude 
That poor folk paid him, — treasure fit for 

heaven, 
But not a dower to tempt the second 

thoughts 
Of marriage-minded Frenchmen. I had 

saved 
A tidy little sum and had no fear 
But we could get along. And yet I knew 
^Twas a big risk : 

We waited, and one day 
The love-rose blossomed. If you ask me 

how, 
I cannot say. A child of three years old 
Knows when a bud has opened, and what 

more 
Is there to tell? When Seraphine and I, 
Subtly constrained by Love, had yielded 

up 
Our inmost selves to serve at his com^ 

mand, 

139 



SEA AND BAY 

It seemed his might had dwelt In us of 
old; 

Born In the dark, fostered by sun and dew, 

Painfully working upward through the 
earth 

To air. Then recognizing more and more 

The wonder of its being, it had grown 

Toward the fulfillment — stalk and leaf 
and bud. 

At last when, urged by passion's deepen- 
ing thrill. 

The petals were unclosed, we found that 
love 

Was just the perfect flowering of our- 
selves 

Into a world of self-forgetfulness. 

We seemed to breathe out fragrance not 
our own, 

Like censers in the dim-lit shrine of God. 

For many a midnight Seraphine and I 
Had searched our souls and left off still in 

doubt 
Of what to do. We met, our doubts dis- 
solved 

140 



BAY AND SEA 

In the strong certainty of mutual love: 
We could not live apart. From that time 

on 
All barriers were but details, and the 

worst 
Was telling the good doctor. Seraphine, 
Though every glance gave token she was 

mine, 
Had made me promise not to seek from 

her 
My answer, till she had his firm consent. 
Those were two anxious days; he had not 

dreamed 
The truth. How haggard was his humor- 
ous face! 
Yet never hard towards me. And when 

he saw 
How trying was the long suspense to her. 
He promised to decide. He came to me, 
Asked of my home and people, but before 
I found my voice, consented, took my 

hand 
And prayed me to forgive him. He was 

sure 

141 



SEA AND BAY 

Of me from the first, he said, but could 

not bear 
To lose his only child until he saw 
That it must be so. Then he pulled me 

down 
And kissed me twice (on either side of 

the nose) 
For sign I was his son from that time 

forth. 
I nearly laughed, but loved him all the 

more. 

How rapt were we that evening ! Sera- 
phine 
And I deep-lost in silent happiness. 
Living in dream-long glances, dream-long 

sighs ; 
The doctor, half amazed to see his girl 
A woman, murmuring still his undersong 
Of "Seraphine, the little Seraphine!" 
Too brief the hours. Back, back once 
more to life, 
To win a fitting place for her I loved. 
We parted, I exultant in the thought 
142 



BAY AND SEA 

That when I came again 'twould be to 

claim 
My bride. How short the intervening 

weeks, 
Filled with that vision, and again — how 

long 
For the impatient lover ! Poetry 
Grew now a part of me. The pots and 

pans 
I purchased for our house (by Jane's 

advice) 
Were things of silver which the imagined 

touch 
Of her white hands had visibly trans- 
formed. 
What did I care that Mother used to say 
In accents of distrust, "A foreign wife!" 
What did I care though all the gossips 

talked 
Of ''Alden Carr's experiment" and hoped 
(But most unhopefully) it would "turn 

out well." 

The time passed slowly, but it passed, 
and then 

143 



SEA AND BAY 

I made my last trip as a bachelor, 

And landed, with my heart and head and 

eyes 
All whirling different ways. I hardly 

know 
From that time till a full month afterward 
Just where or who I was, but certainly 
The day came round, we spoke the fateful 

words, 
And Atwood Brinton slapped me on the 

back 
With, "How does it feel to be a married 

man?'^ 
And drawing me aside, with earnest tones. 
Whispered, "First rate! you've bettered 

my advice." 
Then came the wedding feast, the choked 

farewell. 
The bustle of embarking, and at last 
We two alone upon the moving ship. 
'Twas then I felt the meaning slowly dawn 
Of what my lips had promised; and my 

heart, 
Dizzy with dreams, grew sober for the 

day 

144 



BAY AND SEA 

Of duty. No, the honeymoon (so mis- 
called) 
Is not a halcyon holiday for a man 
Who sees the sphinx-like future gaze on 

him 
Inscrutably. — And Seraphlne? Oh, she 
Was happy as a child in a canoe 
That floats along a flowery river-bank 
Under the very bluest of June skies. 
The more my care, then, to deserve her 
trust. 

The bay once more : Mother and Jane 
and Phil 
And all the others. I had bought a house 
That stood beside the lighthouse on a 

ledge 
Commanding bay and sea alike. In front 
It looked straight out against the sharp- 
cut rim 
Of the horizon; from the beach behind, 
The bay ran inland, widening to the left 
Where the old village lay. How bright it 
looked 

145 



SEA AND BAY 

The morning we moved in! I felt, you 

see, 
I needed both — the ocean to inspire. 
The bay to comfort; and for Seraphine, 
Though steeped in quiet charm, she too 

had moods 
Of mystery and of daring, for her soul 
Had kinship with all beauty, wild or still. 

Is married life a paradise? Well, no. 
No life on earth is that for long, I think. 
To live in paradise one needs a love 
For something out of reach, be it a girl, 
Or fame, or flawless virtue, or the gleam 
Of fleeting truth and beauty; only eyes 
That dwell on heaven may shun the ills of 

earth. 
Find with imagination's telescope 
Some far perfection for your paradise, 
A planet dead these million million years ! 
The artist does not paint ideal beauty. 
Though he adores it; no, if he is wise 
He paints a lovely face, a charming 

scene, — 

1^6 



BAY AND SEA 

Good flesh and earth, but clad in purer 

light. 
'Tis so with woman; the "divine idea," 
"The eternal feminine" is a beacon-ray 
To guide us mid the waves of blind desire; 
But bring it home, it will not cheer your 

hearth. 
The stars were meant to steer by, not to 

warm. 
The simple truth then is that paradise 
Is in the sky — and we must live on earth. 

And yet how can I write so, looking 

down 
As from a hill across the blooming fields 
We traversed? Do I now recall the 

thorns 
That scratched us In that galaxy of 

flowers, 
Far, far too thick for memory's eyes to 

count. 
That spreads unbroken back to the fair 

day 
When first my home was hers? 'Twas 

well, I think, 

147 



SEA AND BAY 

We made our way through thorns and 
flowers alike, 

Learning to know each other and our- 
selves. 

My foreign wife had tact and natural 

grace, 
Spoke English well, and in the true French 

way 
Was pleased with little things; a touch, a 

glance, 
A gay nasturtium vine, a song-sparrow's 

note. 
The outline of an elm, the delicate tint 
Of rosy clouds reflected liquidly — 
On these she lived. You will not find it 

strange 
Then that New England, only grim and 

bleak 
To casual eyes, had many a subtle way 
To recompense her for the loss of France. 
Like land, like people. When my mother 

saw 
How ever-thoughtful was the "foreign 

wife," 

148 



BAY AND SEA 

She soon unbent. And as I had always 

hoped, 
My wife and Jane were sisters from the 

start, 
And never faltered, leaning each on each 
And learning: Jane a wider view of life, 
A cheerfuller code of duty; Seraphine 
The true worth of our bay-folk, and a 

host 
Of household details. What a joy it was 
To feel their harmony! My brother Phil 
Broke out in admiration undisguised 
At all she said and did: the dress she 

wore. 
So soft in hue, so simple in design, 
That fell from throat to wrist so flow- 

ingly, 
So full of ease from shoulder to the poise 
Of her light instep; or her voice a-thrill 
With child-like happiness — at the merest 

phrase 
He'd start and turn in laughable surprise. 
Just as a dog turns round when some one 

sings. 

149 



SEA AND BAY 

He worshipped Hilda with a high respect 
That could not waver, but from time to 

time, 
After our Sunday dinner as we sat 
And smoked, he'd say, "I wonder why it Is 
That Hilda's dresses look so angular. 
She hasn't got the knack, I guess." Again, 
"I like to hear a voice go up and down; 
It makes you so you don't get tired." Of 

course 
I didn't need such little hints as these 
To justify my choice, but still his words 
Helped to support me in the firm belief 
That bay-folks want a world outside their 

own. 
When they divine It. As to that wise 

flock. 
The village gossips, whom we had to meet. 
They owned her manners were agreeable. 

A hurried month was all that I could 
spare 
To found our little home. The bitterest 

pang 
I ever felt was leaving Seraphlne 
ISO 



BAY AND SEA 

To make her way alone in the new land, 
While I returned to win our daily bread 
By bitter wrestling with the bitter sea. 

Ringed by an amphitheatre of blue, 
I fought my gladiator fights. The dome, 
So splendid and so various with the glow 
Of wonder-dreams and proud realities. 
Had narrowed to a cell, for Nature's face 
Was loveless as a woman's that forgets. 
While I had served her as a queen, nor 

owned 
Other allegiance. Lady Ocean smiled 
With favor on her minion; but as soon 
As I had formed a deeper, closer tie 
With a young waiting-damsel of her court. 
She paid my former service with disdain. 
In youth beside the bay my hopes had 

flown 
Far out to sea, but now upon the sea 
My hopes were ever winging toward the 

bay. 

I lived on letters. 'Twas a new delight 
To see my bay pictured in those fond eyes 
151 



SEA AND BAY 

That looked upon me as I read, to drink 
The scene I knew in the swift- welling 

words 
That overflowed the lips of Seraphine. 
For as she spoke she wrote, the very tones 
Of each inflection quaintly Gallicized, 
The little trips in grammar like the steps 
Of girls that dance among the swaying 

grass 
For mere delight, forgetting all the rules 
Of indoor dancing-school — each grace, 

each fault 
(As purists might have said) came skip- 
ping in 
Like round-a-rosy through the crowded 

page. 
So I lived on a whole long year, the while 
I could but peep into the enshrining bay. 
Twice precious with its jewel. 

When at last 
My furlough came again, I found that all 
Had not gone well. Poor little Seraphine ! 
The bay-folk had no gentleness, no love 
Of beauty, not a thought beyond them- 
selves 

152 



BAY AND SEA 

And their small neighborhood, no sym- 
pathy 
Even for what they saw ; their round of 

life 
Knew not a gleam of joy. Yes, Jane was 

kind, 
But oh so practical ! so much she found 
To do, so little time she left for play. ^ 
"She made me buy some chickens" (this, 

it seemed. 
Had been a crucial point), **and they get 

out 
And spoil my flowers." I had to smile at 

that, 
Thinking of Jane's New England thrifti- 

ness, 
And Seraphine so anxious to do right 
And save for me, yet feeUng in her heart 
A desperate anger at the silly fowls 
That scratched among her dahlias. 

Then, poor Phil, 
Trying to cheer my lonely wife, had roused 
In Hilda's breast an imp of jealousy. 
Who, half ashamed to show his ugly head, 
153 



SEA AND BAY 

Made trouble none the less. Hilda had 

marked 
A charm, a sympathy in Seraphine 
She could not understand. (She told me 

this 
Herself in better days.) She saw that Phil 
Responded, for he did most guilelessly. 
She could not see then that this charm was 

but 
The happy radiance of a happy soul. — 
Well, I've forgiven her now, but many a 

time 
It maddened me to watch how Hilda froze 
Each little harmless burst of merriment. 
Much as a grim bright day of early March 
Might chill a shrinking snow-drop. 

Mother too. 
When told, kept on repeating helplessly: 
"She doesn't like our ways; I ain't sur- 
prised." 
I wasn't either. Well, but — what to do? 

"There's no one I can sing to when you 
go," 

154 



BAY AND SEA 

Sighed Seraphlne one evening. There I 
took 

The cue: why shouldn't she give lessons 
here ? 

We tried, and soon found pupils of the 
best: 

Squire Ogden's niece, and Doctor Well- 
man's wife, 

And Nora Gray, who'd been to school in 
town. 

They liked our cosy house, admired the 
view . 

And Brinton's picture, our best wedding 
gift; 

But most of all they took to Seraphlne, 

Invited her to tea, or both of us 

To dinner, where we saw a different set 

That talked of other things than cows and 
crops 

And neighbors' ailments. Then my moth- 
er's friends 

Began to hint we thought ourselves too 
good 

For their society; but It was not so, 
155 



SEA AND BAY 

'Twas but that Seraphine had felt the call 
Of like to like. 

I went off more at ease 
About our future, still my mind was fixed 
That somehow I had got to find a way 
To live at home. You see, before I left, 
My wife had whispered something in the 

dark — 
Just an idea, a hope, and after that 
I couldn't bear to think, if children came, 
That Seraphine must be there all alone, 
And they grow up scarce knowing me by 

sight; 
It would be wicked, that was how I felt. 
When a determination takes deep root, 
It mostly grows, unless the soil is bad. 
From a small boy, I'd always had a craze 
For lighthouses, and so in foreign lands 
I'd noticed where they were built, and how 

and why, 
And talked about them. Now I gathered 

up 
All I could find and wrote a sort of book, 
Telling the risks and dangers of the life, 

156 



BAY AND SEA 

And showing how along the New England 

coast 
Things might be better. What should 

come of this 
But I was sent for down at Washington 
To talk to a committee? After that 
I took six months to study up a bit, 
Passed an examination and became — 
Lighthouse Inspector, which I have been 

by now 
These twenty years. I got a route near 

home 
So I could live there nearly all the time. 
Making my rounds and writing my re- 
ports. 

Some years it took to see the whole 

thing through. 
And in the first our daughter Jane was 

born. 
While I was on the ocean. What a jump 
I gave when I got the news! I pinched 

myself. 
Sat down, stood up, grinned like a fool no 

doubt ; — 

157 



SEA AND BAY 

It seemed so unaccountable to think 
That I was a father. But in ten days more 
I held her in my arms, the odd pink mite 
That was to be a woman, if God willed, 
And live her life, have children in her turn, 
A link in the great chain. Most wonderful 
And solemn! When I knelt beside the 

crib 
And prayed, 'twas hardly more in grati- 
tude 
Than to ask help and strength for what 

should come. — 
In all the greatest moments of our life 
It's not the present that concerns us most, 
But what's to follow. That's the way with 

birth. 
With marriage and with work. Why not 

with death? 
Is that to be the only great event 
That points no farther, a sheer precipice 
Where all our hopes dash down and dis- 
appear? 
I can't believe it. — How my mind runs off 
To sudden thoughts like these! They 
come themselves, 
iS8 



BAY AND SEA 

As I get older, when T walk alone, — 
Often refreshing, always comforting; 
Which makes me think they're wafted to 

our hearts 
By grace divine from some far lands of 

truth. 

Never had I so worshipped Seraphlne 
As then I did, sharing her deeper joy 
In our great blessing. What a softened 

light 
Haloed her resting head! her eyes how 

deep ! 
Her grace how like an angel's ! as she lay 
And with a weak but never-weary arm 
Pillowed the little one. — The world Is bad. 
The world Is harsh, but never was the time 
That men could look unmoved at such a 

scene. 
What holler sign to keep our nature pure 
Than such a picture? Are we In the right, 
We Protestants, to keep It out of church? 

WeVe sailed on steadily from that fair 
time, 

159 



SEA AND BAY 

My little wife and I. More children 

came: 
A boy, a girl, and last, another boy. 
Our house is larger and our hearts as well, 
I hope, though none of our new friends can 

fill 
The place that Brinton held. Of all the 

shocks 
That broke our quiet progress none has 

struck 
So hard as did the news that he'd gone 

down 
Alone and far away. A gallant soul ! 
True to his kind, to Nature and to God. 
Without his help I never could have been 
The half of my best self, 'twas he that 

found 
What no one knew was there, I least of 

all. 
Sometimes I've stood off to admire the job 
That Brinton made of me, for 'twas his 

word 
That drove me forth to seek a larger 

world, 

1 60 



BAY AND SEA 

And seeking find myself; his wisdom 

showed 
My faults and made me strive to weed 

them out, 
And bring to fruit the hidden seeds of 

good. 
I'm glad I never can be satisfied 
With settling back, I'm thankful that my 

boys 
Will have a better start than I could get, 
I'm glad that in a life of steady work 
There has been time for beauty, room for 

And tolerance, too, for men of other 

moulds. 
All this is Atwood Brinton, he himself, 
Not Alden Carr at all, as any one 
Can see. His vital spirit in my veins 
Is pulsing ever, and that's why perhaps 
I love him better while I miss him less. 

Work that is cheery as the morning 
breeze. 
Rest that is tranquil as the evening sky, 
A wife he loves, and children growing up 
i6i 



SEA AND BAY 

Around them, time for nature and for 
friends ; 

These and the sense of something yet un- 
known — 

A world of thought he can but half divine, 

A realm of beauty he but dimly sees — 

All these must blend, I think, to make the 
life 

That brings one nearest to the heart of 
things. 

A man who toils with blind, impatient 
strength 

Will waste himself, and one who only 
dreams 

Will feel his sinews fail in time of stress. 

I haven't done much, and I haven't been, 

Heaven knows, half equal to my happi- 
ness: 

But what I've done, I've done from aiming 
high 

And getting strength in rest and solitude; 

And what I've been, I've been through 
honest work 

To make my dreams come true. That's 
why I say: 

162 



BAY AND SEA 
Blest is the man who can both do and be. 

From thirty-five one's course don't alter 

much. 
Landmarks there were. Twice we went 

back to France 
To visit the old doctor, — hearty still, 
He writes us, though he has not ventured 

yet 
To cross in turn and see us in our home. 
And Mother died. Our greatest grief was 

then 
That no true sorrow came. We scarce 

had known 
A word of love to leave her querulous lips. 
Life had been hard for her, she had done 

her best. 
But always grudgingly; our gratitude 
We paid with lavish words — but not a 

tear. 
She had not looked above the vexing 

swarms 
Of household troubles, even toward the 

end, 

163 



SEA AND BAY 

When Phil and I had made things easy. 

No, 
She had not planted love and might not 

reap. 

The children grew and thrived and went 
to school 
As other children do. No one would care 
To read the record of their words and 

deeds, — 
Their grand achievements, their un- 
equalled wit! — 
Which, like tradition, Seraphine and I 
Still hold in our remembrance, to be lost 
No doubt as all such records needs must 

be. 
And yet these Lesser Iliads that are sung 
Each day by baby lips to loving hearts. 
These epics of the Isle of Lilliput, — 
How often has their murmur soothed our 

cares 
With soft T^olian lisp? Their gleams of 

joy 
A^nd fairy fancy, little flowers of trust. 
The freely-pouring stream of love for all, 
164 



BAY AND SEA 

And the strange vision of our purest hopes 
Flitting like butterflies in childish forms — 
What fabled realm of heroes or of saints 
Has raised us more above our baser selves 
Than childhood's land of truth and inno- 
cence ? 

My work? At first my way was sharp 
and strict, 
A cold, relentless hunting out of faults. 
But soon I learned to take things differ- 
ently : 
To test the very nature of a man, 
His pride and sense of duty; these assured. 
To overlook a trivial slip or two. 
A lighthouse man who never once forgets 
That lives depend upon a fog-horn's blast. 
And ships upon the timing of a flash, — 
He is the man I look for. Now I search 
An eye more keenly than a term report. 
Result, I'm better liked and more obeyed. 

But, when all's said, there's really not 
much chance 

i6s 



SEA AND BAY 

To be one's self in work, where all men 

don 
Their uniforms of office and are merged 
Into the solid army of their kind ; 
The truer moments come when each is free 
To follow his own path. And this is mine: 
To live a man where once I lived a boy, 
Beside the bay, and yet with eager soul 
To taste the sea's wild tang. I love my 

wife 
No less because, with all her hearthside 

calm, 
She has not lost through age and sordid 

cares 
The spice of foreign sweetness, like a 

breath 
Of the south wind that creeps on sultry 

days 
Across the morning blueness of the sea. 
Breaking the placid mirror into smiles 
Innumerable. — How often do I stand 
Out on the cliff there by the lighthouse 

tower 
To see and feel and breathe it! Oh I've 

tried 

1 66 



BAY AND SEA 

A dozen times to keep the thoughts that 

come, 
But there's a mingling feel of fresh and 

smooth 
I've never caught. My best was only this : 



A Sea Wind from the South 



I 



In the noontide heat the gray cliffs tremble, 

Unsure of shape; 
Their bulks an anchored fleet resemble, 

Ranged cape on cape. 
The still wave glints with steely tints, 

Yon sail hangs slack, 
While the smoke climbs high to a dazzling 
sky 

From a steame/s stack, 

• ••••• 

But now my glance 

Perceives across that shining broad ex- 
panse 
A quickening breath 

167 



SEA AND BAY 

That breaks the languorous reign of mid- 
day death. 

For the dusk of the south wind^s promise 

Creeps landward steadily, 
I can feel beforehand the well-known touch 

Of its magic sympathy; 
Sweet from the smile of the indolent 
south, 

Cool with the balm of the sea — 
Strong from the rays of the passionate 
south, 

Clean with the salt of the sea. 

II 

// comes, and the lazy smoke of the 
steamer 

Is wafted back; 
It fills the sail and flutters the streamer 

Of the fishing-smack. 
More near, more near! At last 'tis here, 

Like a longed-for bride. 
The sense it enfolds and the heart it holds 

In its rushing tide. 



i68 



BAY AND SEA 

E'en so each day 

The wind of love breathes in upon my bay, 

Steady and sure, 

As gentle as the south wind and as pure. 

For the low light voice of a woman 

And the touch of her hands to me 
Have the nearness and the remoteness 

Of the wind with its mystery; 
Rich as the glow of the opulent south, 

Fresh as the virgin sea — 
Vague with the charm of the dreamy 
south, 

Soft with the kiss of the sea. 

One's later life is less a broken surge 
Of acts that foam and follow each on each 
Than a wide calm of being. Time glides 

on 
Above us like a tranquil afternoon 
With shifting lights and shadows, but on 

us 
The colors flow together as the greens 
And purples just beyond the outer bar. 
169 



SEA AND BAY 

'TIs well, for mid the fretful waves of 

youth, 
Through which we are tossed from hour 

to restless hour, 
We lose all thought of things that do not 

change : 
Of truth and beauty, of the soul and God. 
Fighting amid the breakers we forget 
That there above the storm the sky is blue. 
But now the soul, sense-weary, passion- 
freed. 
Seeks like a thirsty child the Well of 

Life- 
Love, the divine, the all-pervading Soul 
That dwells in man and Nature, and that 

speaks 
To mortal hearts in symbols: With a 

flower. 
To show us how the tiniest form reflects 
The perfect whole of beauty ; with a star, 
A sunset on the sea, to thrill us deep 
With joy, with splendid sadness and with 

awe. 
But more than these the willing sacrifice 
Of man for men uplifts us, till at last 
170 



BAY AND SEA 

We half attain to see that holler Love 
Nailed to the Cross, forgiving them that 
slay. 

There's few things harder than to note 

the wrongs 
Of earth and feel how powerless are we, 
Save now and then a hero or a saint. 
To right them. When a man in his own 

strength 
Attempts it, can we wonder if he ends 
In desperation? Most of us, it seems. 
Can do no more than trust, and say our 

prayers, 
And do our daily tasks. No human back 
Can bear the weight of the world's misery. 
We stumble even with the smallest loads. 
Trying to act an honest, useful part 
On a town council or a parish board. 
It's queer a man can hardly do just right 
One single hour. Another thing that's 

hard 
Is choosing between duties : town or sons. 
Wife or profession? But as years roll on, 
171 



SEA AND BAY 

I've come to spend my extra hours at 

home, 
Where I'm best known, most loved, can 

do most good. 
And if I'm happiest there — well, joy's no 

sin. 

Jane's twenty-two now, with her moth- 
er's grace 
And love for music; Brinton's coming on 
At school — he'll go to Harvard in good 

time, 
I hope — ; and then there's Margery and 

Phil: 
A good full nest of us! When supper's 

done, 
Before the hour for lessons we all join 
In music. First the children take their 

turns, 
And lastly mother sings her simplest 

songs, 
The wistful little peasant songs of France 
That no one ever tires of. Aunty Jane 
Has mostly happened in by then. She's 

stayed 

172 



BAY AND SEA 

Unmarried, — rather proud of It, I think; 
She's had a-many chances to be sure. 
The children go to lessons, and we three 
Settle back cosily before the fire 
To talk things over. When the clock 

strikes eight, 
I see Jane home to Phil's house — the big 

farm 
He bought last year — and stroll a bit to 

watch 
The moonlight on the ocean's heaving 

breast. 
Or on the other side the steady lamps 
That glow upon the black unrlppling bay. 

I drop more often Into scribbling verse 
These days, especially In the summer time 
When I've a rest between Inspection trips. 
I sit here on the porch and look, and look 
Across the bay, until my prisoned thoughts 
Escape into the aether, and there comes 
A sense of kinship with the things I see, 
As Nature draws me closer to her breast, 
Whispering me of things I cannot tell 
Even to Seraphlne. You know those days 
173 



SEA AND BAY 

In August when the faint-winged breeze 

holds off 
Till afternoon? I tried once to infuse 
The breath of that elusive breathlessness 
Into a song called "Noondde Ecstasy." 

Noontide Ecstasy 

White sails, white sails, o'er the hay that 
shimmer, 
Softly enfolded in warm noon light. 
Your vague reflection, growing ever dim- 
mer, 
Lures across the ripples my spell-hound 
sight. 

White clouds, white clouds, poised in lofty 
station. 
Purer, subtler is the charm you wear; 
Far though you be, my fond imagination 
Breathes the enchantment of your 
dream-heights rare. 

White thoughts, white thoughts, o'er the 
world that hover, 
174 



BAY AND SEA 

Vision that melts in bright far blue, 
Fair as the form of maiden lo her lover, 
Draw with tranquil beauty my longing 
soul to you. 

Fm not a poet, but I somehow think 
There's poetry in the soul of every man, 
If only he knew how to get it out. 
It stands to reason people feel alike, 
And every one is happier when he finds 
The thoughts he loved but hardly dared to 

trust 
Set boldly on the page. To write one's 

best, 
Besides, is more than half to be one's best. 
Something I wrote once, when the heavens 

were clear 
And every mote of star-dust shone dis- 
tinct 
Along the purple highroad of the night. 
That gave me pleasure. Twas a curious 

thought. 
But, as it seemed, a true thought none the 
less. 

175 



SEA AND BAY 

Starlight Meditation 

Fair are the stars! yon scattered silvery 
swarm 
Caught in the wide untremhling web of 
night f 
That through the pearly dimness faint and 
warm 
Shed upon wave and shore their efflu- 
ence bright. 

Fair are the lights! whatever each may 
he: 
Gay colored motes that hack and for- 
ward roam, 
Or dull ship-lanterns burning fixedly, 
White street lights and the yellow lamps 
of home. 

Nature and modern man have wrought the 
scene. 
We think their ways discordant. 
Wherefore so? 
Is the stars' radiance, pallid and serene, 
176 



BAY AND SEA 

Marred by the mirrored lamplight's 
holder glow? 

Nay, for they blend to form a perfect 

whole, 
A unity of beauty in the soul. 

But here I'm maundering, maundering, 

with no more 
To tell, and very little else to say. 
These last few words shall finish. — I have 

lost 
My strong New England accent, what with 

books. 
Talking with Seraphine, and seeing much 
Of outside folks ; but always at the heart 
I'm loyal to my breeding. Brinton said 
No country was as beautiful as this. 
Which makes me bold to say it after him. 
I love it in the large and in the small : 
The broad, low-outlined hills; the bay, 

a-swim 
With purest color, every island shape 
Of gauntness half concealed by straggling 

pines. 

177 



SEA AND BAY 

I love each separate curve of sandy shore, 
Each grove and simple farmhouse, every 

field 
And wall and bush and stone and blade of 

grass. 
Early remembrance now has grown more 

sweet 
From walks with Seraphine, whose 

thoughtful eyes 
Look so much deeper into all they see. 
I love the cliffs, battered and torn and 

cleft, 
But rising from the ocean with stern joy. 
As still they fling the spent and shattered 

waves 
Back from the foaming rampart. And I 

love 
The gullies where the stalwart blackfish 

hide ; 
No fun more keen than casting through 

the surf 
And reeling in the big ones, while the 

spray 
Strums with rude fingers on the tautened 

line — 

178 



BAY AND SEA 

(IVe a queer picture by a Japanese 

That shows a great wave rearing up and 
up 

Just like a dragon with his claws out- 
spread.) 

Then the clean beaches with their speckled 
sand, 

Their moist round pebbles and the flutter- 
ing strips 

Of quaintly ruffled sea-weed! 

Ah, the folks 

That come in June admire the things they 
see. 

But they've not known the splendor of the 
fall, 

And the bleak winter gales that sift the 
soul 

And nerve the heart like danger — those 
are days 

That make us glad of springtime when it 
comes. 

Such is New England, such the little bay 

For which I've left the wide and stormy 
world. 

But still within my being runs the throb 
179 



SEA AND BAY 

Of memories beating from that larger life 
Like breakers from the ocean— how they 

stir 
With unforgotten joys of former years! 
All the more cosy is my sheltered bay 
When the vast surge is roaring. Thus I 

live 
Half in the present, half in memory's 

world ; 
So that at last within me bay and sea, 
My peaceful boyhood and my stormy 

prime, 
Unite their warring natures and are one. 



i8o 



ENVOI 

'Tis autumn, and my reminiscent dreams 
Have drifted down the late September sky. 
The towering billows of the equinox 
Have burst and foamed and sunk, till now 

the sea 
Is quiet and the air Is sharp and clear. 
'TIs time then you and I should say fare- 
well 
And follow each his fortunes as before, 
Eddying amid the whirl of things we call 
Reality. 

So, each apart, we sail 
From out our little bay of poetry 
(Which, although bare and narrow, yet 

was home) 
Into the strange bewildering sea of fact 
That trebly tests our moral seamanship, 
Sweeping us from the sheltering port of 

faith 

i8i 



SEA AND BAY 

And threatening still to swallow up the 
soul. 

Suppose, too, that the whole of life on 

earth 
Is but a bay from which we must put forth 
Into the ocean of eternity. — 
The thought is lonely. May we never 

hope 
That from yon wide, inhospitable void 
We shall win back into the life we knew. 
Shall find once more the bay of human 

love, — 
Blest with diviner beauty, but the same 
To our transfigured hearts? — It hardly 

seems 
That Heaven could be Heaven unless 

'twere so. 



FINIS 



182 



